


The Greenwich, Connecticut Poisoning Case

by lapsi



Series: Case-By-Case [2]
Category: Mindhunter (TV 2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blow Jobs, Case Fic, Child Death, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Infidelity, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Mildly Dubious Consent, Period-Typical Homophobia, Power Imbalance, Resolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-24
Updated: 2018-12-03
Packaged: 2019-07-16 11:55:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 41,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16085600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lapsi/pseuds/lapsi
Summary: Sequel for Three Missing Girls.Special Agent Bill Tench travels Connecticut to look into a case sent his way by private investigator, Holden Ford. Holden is being paid to look into a 1971 poisoning case by the bereaved parents of one of the deceased, but Bill has to admit the case files sent his way were impeccable, and merited FBI involvement.But the case files are never the whole story.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [reserve](https://archiveofourown.org/users/reserve/gifts), [robokittens](https://archiveofourown.org/users/robokittens/gifts).



> This _entirely reader discretionary_ post-series is set after Three Missing Girls.
> 
> I left that fic intentionally ambiguous so that readers could imagine their own endings. But, here I am, back to stamp all over that choice with the post-series fic that nobody (actually, two people???? hey guys) asked for.

 

 

Bill watches the figure pulling off a helmet through a blind-slatted motel window. The smooth, mormon-ish haircut is unmistakable, but he disbelieves. A motorcycle. Too cool for Holden by half. He opens his door and advances into the motel's car park, approaching on angles so he doesn’t have to acknowledge this stranger. The motel sits back from the road, hidden by hedges, ashamed of its low concrete roof amongst the quaint Georgian architecture that dominates Greenwich, Connecticut.  
  
And in the strange dead space of a wide car lot, between headway and heritage, there’s the man Bill saw through his window. Stooped to one knee, unbuckling a strap holding down a bag to the bike’s rear. It's not the same Holden Ford he knew in Madison.  
  
But it is Holden Ford.  
  
“A fucking motorbike?” Bill asks loudly.  
  
Holden startles up. He turns around slowly, glamorous against the fading pink light. “Nobody drives cars in New York. I didn’t have anyone to teach me,” he says defensively. Then he’s smiling at the sight of Bill. "Em doesn't drive. ... the license for a motorcycle was easier. And I couldn’t be driving around without a license."  
  
Bill is shaking his head as he approaches, leaning over to toy with the zip of Holden's leather jacket. It looks like a gift, in that it is completely out of place on Holden Ford. “You were such a nice young man when we met,” he laments.  
  
Holden laughs, swaying out of reach and fixing his collar self-consciously. “I almost made you hit me ten seconds into greeting you, Bill. When I took that cigarette.”  
  
“Why did you do it, then?”  
  
“So you’d stop being so fucking cocky. The way you introduced yourself, before you sat down. Half a syllable at a time. You thought I was stupid. You thought you were going to walk all over me.”  
  
“Most criminals are stupid, Holden. I didn’t know you weren’t a criminal.”  
  
Holden is still smiling. “I mean, I wasn’t a murderer. I bought narcotics from--”  
  
“Yeah, I remember, Holden. I’m still FBI. So, knock it off.”  
  
“And my roommate sells--” Holden dribbles out, eyes alight.  
  
“You want the handcuffs on already?”  
  
Holden’s lips are bright red with the cold. He’s still pale, even out of prison. The haircut is just as neat, which makes the little hints of Em’s styling look even less appropriate. Jeans. A plain enough button down shirt. “Is that a real offer?”  
  
Bill’s smile fades. “...right. I knew this was a bad fucking idea.”  
  
Holden’s grin disappears. “Sorry. Sorry. I’m nervous. Crass jokes when I’m nervous. It’s a habit.”  
  
“Why are you nervous?” Bill asks. “Figured you’d be right in your element. Sprawling mystery, off the beaten trail. Six dead kids.”  
  
“Five. I’ve dismissed the last death as unrelated.”  
  
“I know. You said so in the packet you gave me. I think you’re wrong. I think it’s related.”  
  
Holden’s smile is crisp and genuine. Impressed, Bill would hazard. The young man pulls a bag from the back of the motorcycle. “Walk me through your reasoning, Special Agent Tench.”  
  
“Where’re all your notes?”  
  
“Oh, they’re here.”  
  
“Your files, too? Don’t tell me Holden Ford has stopped hoarding clippings.”  
  
“I’ve got FBI access, now, Bill. Why would I want inferior duplicates of what you have?” Holden blinks innocently.  
  
“Because you don’t have my files, kid. I have my files. You have non-FBI files,” Bill says, and frowns at the fact that Holden is still trailing along behind him. He pushes in his own motel room door, but doesn’t step inside. “And I have my room, and you have your room.”  
  
“Right,” says Holden, right behind him. “I thought we could talk the case. ...the rooms are adjoining, anyway.”  
  
“What?” Bill says, pausing with his key in the door.  
  
“I called and asked them to move us to adjoining rooms. So we could work late if necessary.”  
  
“Holden, that is deeply inappropriate,” Bill says, folding his arms. He glances around the parking lot, and then pulls Holden by the arm into his room.  
  
Holden is justifying immediately, an edge to his voice. “It wasn’t anything untoward. I thought it would be prudent to--”  
  
“Holden.”  
  
“I’m sorry,” Holden says, without sounding sorry at all. “I can ask them to move my room far, far away from yours,” he offers, folding his own arms, raising one eyebrow. “I didn’t realize it would upset your sensibilities.”  
  
“Don’t talk about my fucking sensibilities, boy.”  
  
“Do you want me to move my room?”  
  
“No. Just, go. To your own room.”  
  
Holden’s raised eyebrow tweaks further that. Bill hates how parental he sounds. But, apparently, that tone merits obedience. Holden readjusts the rucksack over his shoulder and traipses out of the single room.  
  
Bill sits on the side of the bed, rubbing the back of his head. _Fuck._ He should have never looked over this case. No matter how well-written and compelling Holden’s faxed notes were. The same notes Bill has yet to even open this evening; he’d been waiting for Holden’s presence.  
  
He hasn’t seen Holden for most of year, though the phone calls have been a regular, invigorating feature in Bill’s otherwise dull routine. Taking a case from Holden Ford was a risk in more ways than one. But the siren song of a compelling psychological write-up and an excuse to brush shoulders with the kid proved too much for Special Agent Bill Tench. It’s Madison all over again.

 

  
  
It’s most of an hour later when there’s a knock on the door. Bill groans softly over the case file he’s picking his way through. He should ignore it, but he pulls himself off the bed to open it inwards. He takes off his reading glasses, though he’ll no doubt need them. Last thing he needs is to feel any older. Holden has a case file under one arm, and a bottle of what looks to be scotch whisky held aloft in the other hand. A battering ram to forced entry. He’s out of his leather jacket, which Bill is inexplicably relieved by. His Holden Ford, once more.  
  
Bill moves his jaw into multiple positions, none comfortable, and tries to decide on the thing to say. “You want a drinking buddy?”  
  
“It’s a gift for you. For taking the case.”  
  
“Accepting a gift would be against professional guidelines. Wouldn’t want people to think you’re attempting to bribe a federal agent, Holden.”  
  
“Taking the case in Madison,” Holden corrects himself on the fly. “So. Whisky that doesn’t taste like paintstripper.” He shakes the bottle, sloshing appealingly.  
  
The mention of Madison spurs sudden nostalgia. Probably intentional, on Holden's part. “Can we drink it outta motel coffee mugs? Or is too fancy for that?”  
  
“What else do you drink whisky out of?” Holden smartasses. He slips past Bill and picks his way towards the tiny kitchen space. Finds glasses, but picks up mugs instead. Bill must not be the only nostalgic one. Holden sets the mugs out, glugging out generous pours. Maybe too generous. Or Holden’s learned how to handle his largactil-alcohol cocktails.  
  
Holden pretends to read Bill’s files. Bill enjoys the charade, enjoys how transparent Holden’s insecurity is. He reads Holden’s notes, which have been expanded on, not particularly revised. Holden sent everything to Bill, fax by fax, more effort than Bill sees from most sprawling federal investigations. Holden Ford should have been FBI.  
  
The minutes crawl past, heavy with trepidation, until Holden stops thumbing through the FBI files, and gives Bill his undivided attention. “Okay. It’s killing me. Why am I wrong?”  
  
“About the sixth kid?”  
  
“Of course,” Holden says fast.  
  
“Don’t tell me the great Holden Ford can’t preempt counterargument. You’ll disappoint me.”  
  
Holden rolls his eyes. “Is it the school thing?”  
  
“It’s not the school thing.”  
  
Holden doesn’t want to hear it. “Because he was home-schooled doesn’t mean he didn’t have an integration into social circles, you’re correct, but I think --”  
  
“I said, it’s not the school thing. Listen to me when I talk.”  
  
Holden sits down on the bed and pulls open a file. Pretends to read, again. Not for long. “...come on, Bill,” he pleads. “Tear me apart or I’ll do it anyway.”  
  
“Even well-behaved, Evangelical boys don’t tell their parents everything. You’re working from the theory that he didn’t have contact with any strangers in the two days leading up to his death, aren’t you? He was home-schooled, and he didn’t have any friends over. But here’s the thing, Holden. His mother went to a community group for three hours. Left him home alone.”  
  
“You think a thirteen year old kid walks… two miles? Is that about right?” Holden asks, sifting through the file for a map. He doesn’t find one. “...okay, let’s call it two miles, though I think it might be more. He walks all that way into town, and then back again? For what reason?”  
  
“Christ, for that exact reason. He was being home-schooled, Holden. He was isolated, geographically, socially, what have you. Lonely. He had three hours without mommy looming over him. Probably woulda walked two miles over broken glass to talk to a girl that wasn’t related to him.”  
  
“How does he end up poisoned, then? Who gives him the arsenic-laced… let’s say food or drink. I’m almost certain it’s not a faked medication like that case in Arkansas. Does he buy food?”  
  
“Maybe,” Bill allows.  
  
“Does someone buy food for him? A drink? Bring him into their home and feed him a meal?"  
  
Bill has dragged a chair closer, cradling the mug of whisky. Tastes fine. Smooth, but he’s had smooth, cheap booze, and campfire-scrapings, expensive booze. Mostly with Nancy's father. “If I knew the answer I’d have solved the case. There'd be no trip out to Connecticut. You’d be at home in NYC, and I’d be in Virginia.”  
  
Holden nods, seeming a bit too happy about the case remaining unsolved. “If you think he’s poisoned, we’ve gotta exhume the body. Confirm that the hepatitis diagnosis was incorrect. Forensics could find arsenic--” he trails off dead. There’s a loud knocking, not on Bill’s door, but the adjoining room.  
  
Then, a loud male voice in the corridor outside. “Holden. Holden, open the fucking door. ...I’m not going anywhere until we talk. Okay? Open up.” The demand is punctuated with more thumps.  
  
Holden is ramrod straight on the edge of the bed, fingers jittery on the open documents. Not a word of explanation. He drops the file he’s holding, paces over silently, opening the slimmest gap he can to worm through the motel door and into the night. He doesn’t click the lock closed.  
  
The same voice starts up at once. “--he’s in there, isn’t he? I knew there was someone. I knew it. You said you'd call and you didn't, Holden. Not even to say you were in town. I have to drive around motels looking for your bike--”  
  
Holden’s urgent, hushed voice jumps in. “You have to leave. Right now. Or I stop the investigation, and it goes unsolved--”  
  
“The FBI is already looking into it, you little whore.”  
  
“I’m not about to take any lessons in morality from the man cheating on his wife--” and then there’s a scuffling sound. Bill reaches for the gun on the bedside, just in time as it turns out. The door slams open. A man starts inside, much taller than Holden, bigger. But Gregory Creighton was bigger too, and Holden was shot and handcuffed. Holden, admittedly reliant on the element of surprise, had won that fight. He’s not fighting now. He has a panicky look that Bill last saw after the kid compared him to a prison rapist.  
  
“And this must be--” the man starts. He jolts backwards at the sight of the service weapon trained on him. Tall, salt and pepper hair like Bill’s, though the man is far more overstyled. A short, trimmed beard. Blue eyes that were contorted with rage, and upon making out the gun, fear.  
  
“Special Agent Bill Tench,” Holden says icily. “He _was_ investigating the case with me.”  
  
“Who the fuck--” Bill starts to ask, stops. He recognizes the man from the case file photos, even if they were years out of date. They’ve spoken on the phone, even if he didn’t register the voice when it was strangled with outrage. _Shit, I was supposed to interview him tomorrow._ _Ellis. Harrison Ellis. Father of Julian Ellis, the deceased eight year old._ Even a generous drink deep, and entirely off-guard, Bill pieces the overheard argument into ugly completion. His finger still caresses the trigger, even though it’s not aimed straight at the intruder’s chest.  
  
Harrison Ellis is all apologies: “Sorry, sir. There’s been a misunderstanding. Holden, would you come outside and--”  
  
“Holden, don’t go anywhere.” Bill straightens himself up, wishing he were more appropriately dressed. He’d like his tie on right now. “...I don’t appreciate people bursting into my room. Next time you give me a shock, you might end up with a shock of your own,” Bill says, setting the gun back in place pointedly. “Go home, Mr. Ellis.”  
  
Holden is pressed back into the wall, doesn’t spectate on Ellis’ frantic evacuation of the motel room. _Abandoning the kid to me. And I have a gun. What a fucking romantic._ _  
__  
_ Holden remains stock-still at the slamming door, like he’s a carved ornament upon the wall he’s jammed himself against. Like some intricate detailing on imposing Greco-Roman architecture.  
  
Bill waits out the car pulling away before he’ll even grant Holden the alleviation of direct address: “So. Your employer, I suppose. Mr. Harrison Ellis. Who I was gonna humiliate myself going into interview tomorrow, unaware that you two were _involved_. Ten AM. Harrison and ...uh, Jennifer Ellis? That’s his wife’s name, isn’t it?”  
  
Holden nods without really paying attention.  
  
“Anything to say for yourself?” Bill asks, slapping the photos back into the file.  
  
“...I’m sorry,” Holden mutters down his own chest. Bill waits for more. Nothing.  
  
“Fine. Stand there like part of the furniture, while I pack,” Bill growls. He has to walk closer towards Holden to pull his suitcase from the ground.  
  
Holden severs his connection with the solid wall, to encroach into Bill’s personal space. “...I liked that he was married. Meant he wanted me enough to tempt him away from his wife.”  
  
“And that makes you a piece of shit homewrecker, you know that, right?” Bill says, shoving Holden back into the wall. He takes the suitcase back to the bed, going right back to packing.  
  
Holden’s eyes are merrily dancing as he steps forward again. Demonically pleased with the violence. Always enjoys seeing Bill’s bad side. “Yeah, well, the one who got away was married. I guess it was nice to see someone bite down on the bait I dangled their way.”  
  
Bill stops to glare up. “Seducing a dead kid’s _married_ father. I didn’t know it was possible for Holden Ford to hit a new low, but here we are, huh?”  
  
“I didn’t seduce him,” Holden retorts.  
  
“So, what, you met at a crowded bar and didn’t recognize each other until it was too late?” Bill asks sarcastically.  
  
“No. We met up to discuss the case. At a bar, yes, but it wasn’t crowded. I was talking about financials. ...he said he’d give me an advance. He manages sales at the publishing house that bought my fucking book, Bill. He heard about the case, my case, how it got solved. He wasn’t some stranger. He invited me back to his apartment. He commutes in, so he has an apartment in the city where we did interviews. He had some boxes of Julian’s stuff. I’d been over to look through, when he first hired me. It didn’t seem anything out of the ordinary.”  
  
Bill stops hodgepodging case files away too fast to keep the filing system intact. He sighs, but can’t keep from asking: “Financials?”  
  
Holden shrugs. “When Clementine Bradshaw tried to sue me in that wrongful death--”  
  
“Yeah, you phoned me in a fucking panic about it. At eleven at night. ...that got shut down in less than a month, Holden.”  
  
“Still had to fork over for a lawyer’s retainer.”  
  
“You have a _hundred thousand dollars_ sitting in the fucking bank.”  
  
“No, I don’t. I outright bought the apartment I’m living in. I couldn’t hope to get financing in my position, so. Cash. And then there’s costs of college. Medical expenses. I’ve got my future expenditure worked out, and if I don’t keep up a steady income flow, I could be ruined in four years. ...he was paying me good money to look into a case that had been cold for seven years. I wasn’t begging, I wasn’t propositioning. I was only complaining about how much the lawyer’s retainer was.”  
  
Bill sighs again, exhausted. Of course Holden hired some hotshot to defend him. Not risking another public defender again. And he supposes he can’t rebuke the kid for stringent accounting, after the occasionally abject poverty Holden Ford was raised in. ...or his stint of homelessness, that Bill still feels at least partly responsible for. “And then?”  
  
“And he gave me glass of cognac, and said he appreciated how hard I was working on this case. We were talking about Julian. I’m not good at the sympathy part of my job, you know? I--I was trying. He had my manuscript-- well, it’s not quite complete, but-- and then another glass of cognac because he had some questions about prison life, and about… about… things I hadn’t written into the book. And that check was just sitting there on the coffee table between us. And he said, come here. And I did. And then I sucked his dick, and he gave me the check,” Holden says, uninvolved in retelling.  
  
“Wait, _wait,_ he coerced you into--”  
  
“No.”  
  
“He got you drunk. He pressured you into performing oral sex--”  
  
“If anyone has an abundance of personal experience to draw from on whether they got raped or not, it’s Holden Ford,” Holden says with a similarly detached air. “It was just a blowjob, Bill.”  
  
“He came crashing in here over one measly blowjob?”  
  
Something like offense flickers on Holden’s face. “It was just a blowjob _then_.” He walks over to the bottle of whisky. A gift to _Bill_ , that Holden now helps himself to. He pours himself too much liquor, drinks it in one. “I should go to sleep.”  
  
“Is that code for, you’re about to drive back to New York on that dinky fucking bike, at ...what is it? Ten PM? Absolutely not. And you’ve been drinking, which I _know_ you can’t handle.”  
  
“Are you going to arrest me?” Holden asks again, though this time it’s spiteful.  
  
“Say that again, Ford. Go on. Keep up your usual fucking needling,” Bill snaps, dropping a stack of files from a height. They scatter into his trunk like a foamy, fracturing shoreline. “You know, whoring yourself out wasn’t on my checklist for your future,” he adds cruelly.  
  
Holden flinches and folds his arms over his front. And then he’s meeting Bill’s eyes, unsettlingly direct. “It wasn’t one measly blowjob.” And then, calmly as you please: “The better my mouth was, the less likely they were to want more. So, an _exceptional_ blowjob.”  
  
Bill can’t tear his gaze away from those lips as they shape so innocently about the phrase ‘blowjob’. Like some sweet, nothingness, triviality. There’s a tiny scar at the point of Holden’s cupid’s bow. And the mouth itself, plush and inviting. Holden’s tongue is on his front teeth, carving a mark over the tip. It seems like a nervous gesture until Bill realizes Holden is staring right at him. The suggestion of a smirk. _Sure, you didn’t deliberately seduce anyone._ _  
__  
_ Bill wants to wipe that fucking smile off his fucking face. And for some reason, in this charged moment, the thing to do seems to be grabbing Holden by the shirt front and kissing the life out of him. Perhaps it’s too angry to call it a kiss. He expects Holden to be ferocious in return. He’s not. He caves and crumbles. Bill pushes him and Holden just stumbles back towards the wall. Bill takes his jaw, and Holden lifts it obediently. Their mouths are together and Holden’s is open wide and welcoming. Holden’s whisky-sodden tongue is on his. The kid touches him back, bracing, clinging. He stumbles, maybe stumbles on purpose, and they’re on the bed inextricably entangled.  
  
“Oh my god,” Holden whispers, and Bill feels sick to his stomach at the bright optimism. “Oh my god,” Holden, the self-professed atheist, says again, trying to get his mouth onto Bill’s. “I’m sorry, Bill, I’m sorry, I should have told you, I--” he’s saying underneath Bill’s chin, head dipped with apology. Bill can’t decide whether there’s any legitimacy to the penitence.  
  
“You’re trouble, aren’t you, kid?” Bill says, though the anger has gone out of him. He looks down at Holden, heart stammering away in his chest. _What am I doing?_  
  
Holden nods with wide eyes. He’s trying to get his hands underneath Bill’s shirt. Bill’s skin crawls with contact.  
  
_What am I doing? What am I fucking doing?_ Bill touches the tiny scar with a forefinger and Holden catches the hand between his lips. Bill peels the upper lip back as if checking a horse’s teeth to establish age. Holden tries to get his mouth over it, licking at the fingertip, then sucking hard enough to nearly bruise.  
  
Bill groans right from the lowest of his lungs.  
  
It seems to be permission granted, as far as Holden is concerned. He jolts up of the motel bed, pulling his t-shirt off, and kicking off the cuffed jeans, sliding them off his hips. Fabric pools on the brown carpet.

He reclines back on the comforter in a show of gorgeously youthful flesh, broken only by blue and white checkered boxers. And then, Bill’s involuntary professional scrutiny begins. He finds himself analyzing the multitudinous flaws. He knows what Holden had been through, but he didn’t expect quite so many physical reminders. Not only are there the ropy suicide attempt scars on his left wrist, there’s another scar on his abdomen, his shoulder, and other smaller clues to the trauma that the young body has endured.  
  
“Got some war wounds, huh?” Bill says, and regrets every single component of that assertion.  
  
“Oh. Yeah. Where Bradshaw shot me healed up pretty good,” Holden says, fingertips tracing a raised, grey-pink nub. His hand slides down, to below his ribs, the scar above his navel. “It was a toothbrush shiv,” Holden explains. “Plastic. Blunt, luckily. Or it would have hit something important,” he murmurs. “It didn’t hurt so bad. People always compare pain to getting stabbed. There are better metrics.” He takes Bill’s hand, lifts it to just above his left nipple. There’s three white shiny circles. “That hurt more. Burns. That’s a good metric.”  
  
“Cigarette?” Bill asks gently, tracing the scars one by one.  
  
Holden shivers, mouth falling open tantalizingly easily, arching a fraction into Bill’s hand. Despite the subject at hand, Holden’s overreaction to even the limited stimulation has Bill twitching hard, filling out against the immuring, creasing suit pants. _Imagine how he’s gonna react when I actually touch him. Probably have to keep a hand over his mouth the whole time to spare the rest of the motel guests._ Bill wouldn’t mind covering his mouth right now. _Shut up about your trauma while I’m trying to fuck you._ He could never do that to Holden, though. Probably the first time he’s ever talked in detail about what happened to him in Dodge Correctional.  
  
His fingers are still tracing the scar tissue. He hopes it’s more like comforting than it feels from Bill’s end. Bill is _enjoying_ Holden.  
  
Holden twitches. _Adrenaline-overloaded,_ Bill thinks. _Primed for touch. Don’t think about that. Don’t cross these mental divides._

“Mm _m_ ,” the boy confirms, unless that’s a grunt of pleasure. “Cigarettes. It was… ‘hold still or I’ll’… and I held still and he did it anyway. I’ve got another couple of scars on my ass,” he offers up casually. He guides Bill’s fingers again, up, up, up. Stopping in the clammy dip of tendons and prickled alert fresh. “Here, can you feel that? Same man, broke my clavicle pushing me into tiles in the bathroom,” he says slowly, a vibrancy present in Holden’s normally composed affect.  
  
Bill traces the jut of bone, wondering if that’s the photograph he saw of Holden Ford in a hospital bed, in Katherine Lizbon’s files.  
  
“That kink in the bone, there. It never healed right. I’ve got something similar in my left arm. I was in hospital for--”  
  
And Holden’s other hand has worked its way into Bill’s clothing, trying to sneak past the belt and the fastened trousers. “ _Holden,_ ” Bill hisses, recoiling.  
  
“... _sorry_. Sorry,” Holden says, stricken. He’s squinting up, like he can’t make sense of the denial. His hands drop to his sides, a passive, restrained posture. Now Bill notices Holden’s erection showing through the checkered boxers. “...if you want to fuck me, I’ll keep my hands to myself. I can tell you more about what they did to me--”  
  
“Holden. Jesus, no, I don’t wanna hear about that shit. Least of all while we’re-- I mean, if you need to talk about it--” Bill sits back, rubbing his eyes. “....I knew this was a fucking mistake. You should go back to your room.”  
  
“...I’m sorry. Look, I’m sorry. I’ll, I’ll,” Holden reaches for his shirt, pulling it over the intricately mapped out damage. “You don’t even have to look at me. Okay? You don’t have to see any of it. I’m-- I’m clean, you know. Doctor Lizbon insisted they test me for _everything_ under the sun--”  
  
“Holden, come on,” Bill mutters, grappling him into position on the bed. “Take it easy.”  
  
Holden allows himself to be steered, but settles into strange, stooped prayer. He’s intent only upon the bedspread beside his folded knees. He looks close to regurgitating the gifted whisky, swaying on the spot. When he speaks, it’s a pathetic mumble: “Please tell me what I can do to make you want me.”  
  
“Look at me. _Look._ Your scars don’t scare me. Shit, kid, I’ve got scars. Got into a couple of tight spots myself. You know I’m FBI, don’t you? And you know I was in the army before that? I’m no stranger to scars.” That all comes easy enough. Man-to-man comforting. Then, he struggles. “What I don’t like is your complete willingness to turn what happened to you into some… some kind of sexual performance for…” Bill stops speaking, reaching to take Holden’s chin. The eye contact somehow doesn’t come no matter how he tries to raise Holden from his slouch. “Do I have to go over and lay this guy out? Is this what he-- Holden, _look at me_ . Did he make you do this?”  
  
“He didn’t make me do anything,” Holden says evasively.  
  
Bill blows air through his clenched teeth. Like a whistle signalling men out of the trenches. He reaches for his badge and his gun. “...I’m gonna fucking kill that--” he says, and then Holden grabs him by the shirt and pulls him onto the bed.  
  
It’s a crushing, desperate kiss. Holden is at his neck open-mouthed. Anguished with urgency. Bill shouldn’t drop the subject, but he can’t cogitate to continue the line of questioning. And he’s certainly not leaving the motel room in this state. Not with this young man sprawled against him, lavish still life drapery. Bill gets his hand underneath the t-shirt, pulling it over Holden's head despite the momentary flinch of self-preservation.  
  
Holden has managed to pull upright, settled over one of Bill's thighs, legs obscenely parted. Mostly naked. Bill didn’t realize how badly he wanted to see that body underneath all of the prison uniforms and the straightjackets and the suits.  
  
“Bill,” Holden murmurs, struggling unusually with self-expression. “You’re-- you’re the best man I’ve ever--”  
  
“Ever _seduced_?” Bill says flippantly into Holden’s jaw, before the empty silence can fill with whispers of conscience. The immorality of the act intrudes with shrill resonance and Bill doesn't want to hear it.  
  
Holden pulls away from the contact. “Ever met,” he whispers reverentially, holding onto Bill’s lapel hard.  
  
Bill cannot begin to unpack that. And Holden isn’t done.  
  
“I missed you so much. Day after day, after day, after day, I missed you. And I had to _try_ to forget what we had or I’d be even crazier, you know?”  
  
_What we had?_ Bill doesn’t get to ask because Holden is pushing him back onto the bed, reaching for his belt.  
  
“...I missed you, Bill,” Holden says, again. Sober, almost reproachful. He pulls the belt out and away, casts it wantlessly to the floor. Bill should throw the brakes on and avert this oncoming, multi-car pileup of a calamity. Say ‘no’. Push the kid away.  
  
He doesn’t. Holden has his fly down. Holden has his briefs down.  
  
“...I knew it,” Holden murmurs entranced, crouched above him.  
  
“Uh,” Bill grunts, wishing Holden wouldn’t fucking stare. “What?”  
  
“I knew you’d have a really nice cock. A really nice, big cock,” Holden says, spaced out. “Can I touch you, Bill? Please? Can I use my mouth?”  
  
“Uh, sure--” Bill falters, hideously uncomfortable. He doesn’t have long with his discomfort. Holden’s mouth is over him, wetter and warmer than a mouth ought to be. It’s slick and the suction is immediate. Holden’s fingers are on him too, pushing into his own lips, coming away wet as they work Bill. And his tongue, pointed and intent, pressing away underneath on skin nobody but Bill has ever thought about touching. Holden lathes at his cock, then slides down, cheeks hollowing. Unblinking, unreadable blue eyes are studying Bill’s reaction.  
  
Bill can’t remember anyone ever wanting to see what he looked like during moments of pleasure. His face is usually buried in Nancy’s neck, or against Nancy’s hair, and the lights would be down anyway. Not that it’s happened much recently, with Brian. And before that, the urgent and unflattering and disappointing attempts to conceive. In fact, Bill can’t even remember the last blowjob Nancy gave him, which didn’t bother him; he’d considered them a vastly overrated sex act. And he hasn’t perform oral sex on Nancy since she was still in nursing school.  
  
Holden has his lips together, at the head of Bill’s cock, kissing open mouthed. And he lets Bill in to the softest insides of him. Slides down inch after inch, enough to have Bill grunting with appreciation.  
  
Bill thought he didn’t really enjoy blowjobs. He’d had two dry and unfulfilling ones from his high school girlfriend, and then many affectionate and yet perfunctory performances from Nancy. Holden is educating Bill on his own preferences: he does enjoy blowjobs. Oh, god, does he enjoy blowjobs. He grunts at every oscillation of Holden’s tongue, amazed by how far he can thrust into the kid’s throat, moving his hips gently at first, growing more confident at Holden’s encouraging stares. Holden makes strange stifled choking sounds without slowing at all. And still fucking staring up, watering wide eyes that Bill’s pretty sure are tattooed onto his subconscious until the day he dies.  
  
He hasn’t felt attractive like this in years. He hasn’t felt alive like this in years. He could be losing his virginity at seventeen. Except that his partner actually knows what he’s doing.  
  
Holden raises, mumbling into Bill’s flushed and tenderly throbbing skin. “Steer me, if you want. Hold my hair. I’ll be able to take it.”  
  
_It’s fine, it’s perfect,_ Bill wants to say. It’s sounds too close to ‘you’re perfect’. “Keep going, okay?” he grunts.  
  
“Yes, sir,” Holden says muffled. Bill isn’t sure if he misheard the honorific. A silky hot mouth is all over him.  
  
Harrison Ellis barrelling on into the motel room suddenly seems perfectly reasonable.  
  
Holden is stroking away at him with that saliva-smeared hand, seamlessly rhythmed to meet the bounce of his head. Bill should probably warn him, but he doesn’t, and Holden seems to know anyway. There’s more viscous, percussive noises of repressed gagging as he takes Bill even deeper at finish. Bill grunts gutturally, feeling a shudder rack his entire musculature, cascading and blissful. Holden’s mouth is gentle on abruptly oversensitive skin, working him through it.  
  
Then, Holden’s tucking him back into his underwear, pulling a box of tissues off the bedside table and wiping off spittle from his own lips. The young man lies down beside him, strangely unintimate.

“I wasn’t actually gonna kill him,” Bill mutters in an unfitting rejoinder. _What, worried about Holden snitching? ...worried Holden will quit it with the hero worship, if I’m too morally compromised?_ _  
_ _  
_ “I know you would never kill someone who didn’t deserve it.”  
  
“I’m not saying he wouldn’t deserve it. But I wasn’t gonna kill him.”  
  
“...will you keep working the case?”  
  
“Can we talk about that… that after?” Bill groans.  
  
“After what?” Holden asks, eyebrow raised, and then jumps as Bill pulls him in close by the waist. “Oh. You don’t have to. I was thanking you.”  
  
“You don’t want me to touch you?” Bill says, letting himself almost pout. But he doesn't fucking pout.  
  
Holden has no answer to that, so Bill works his hand inside the boxers. His wristwatch catches against the band of elastic. Holden is achingly hard, and responds to even the most tentative of strokes like Bill’s applying electrodes directly into his prefrontal lobe. Bill swears he sees the boy’s eyes roll. Lashes flicker, and his features contort inward in a guttural moan of pleasure. He’s holding onto Bill’s forearm, and Bill pushes him onto his back, takes the hand and intertwines their fingers.  
  
It feels reciprocal, tugging down Holden’s boxers. Holden’s pubic hair is all very neat. Trimmed, maybe. There’s a cigarette burn scar on his inner thigh. His cock is resting against his flat belly. Holden’s no nancy boy in that department, and Bill can’t imagine getting his mouth over anything more than half. This act is unlike anything Bill’s ever done.  
  
He has some notion that he must have learned from Holden, even if he only lasted a matter of minutes with that _“exceptional”_ mouth on him.  
  
He licks, first. It doesn’t taste shockingly wrong, as he expects it to. It doesn’t taste like a penis, or rather, Bill’s preconceptions about how masculine and unfamiliar a penis would taste. Though there’s clear discharge at the tip and the thought of _that_ smearing in his mouth isn’t appealing. But Bill grips harder on Holden’s hand, and works his lips down. Barely a couple inches of it, and Bill finds his throat seizing up. He pulls off, tries to lick a few more times, which feels more like something he’d do to a girl. He’d think he were giving the worst blowjob of all time, if Holden weren’t writhing and moaning.  
  
Bill straightens up, grabbing Holden’s other hand and pushing it over his own mouth. “Keep ahold of yourself,” he scolds, as if he isn’t thoroughly enjoying the show.  
  
Holden clasps the gagging hand over his lips and nods obediently.  
  
Bill bends back down. He kisses into the base, above curls of dark hair, and then up to the tip. He finds he likes the act, and then loathes himself from his deepest core.  
  
Holden moans muffled at each contact, pulling his hand aside to speak. “It’s too much. It’s too much-- Bill, can you-- just your hand--” he whimpers wetly. Crying. What was a romantic lace of fingers is now clawlike on Bill’s hand.  
  
Bill nods his assent, lifting up and wiping his lips against Holden’s t-shirt. He pumps at Holden’s cock measured, methodical. This, he knows how to do.  
  
Tears are running from the corners of the young man’s eyes, down the cheekbones, into the curls of trimmed sideburns. Holden is a shaking as if hypothermic, smothering himself with the same hand, staring straight up at the roof. Silently bawling his eyes out. If it weren’t for the desperate clutching, Bill would think Holden wanted him to stop.  
  
But Holden’s not moaning any more.  
  
It occurs that Holden thinks that a handjob will be less likely to disgust Bill. So this isn’t about what Holden wants. This about what Holden thinks Bill doesn’t want. Bill leans down, replacing his hand with his mouth again.  
  
Holden’s eyes dart down wide with panic. He’s shaking his head, whimpering in the throes of overwhelmed bliss. Then, Bill remembers to create suction. Without warning, Holden is jerking his hips reflexively up.  
  
Bill coughs and gags at the pressure on the top of his throat. Holden’s cock collides with something tender, and it’s all he can do not bite down in panic. He feels his throat working; revulsion, an expelling force, trying to dislodge that foreign intrusion. Bill pulls upright, grimace glued to his wetted lips. His saliva feels thinned out and threatening.  
  
He hears a mumbled ‘ _sorry_ , sorry’ between the slatted muzzle of fingers. Bill drops Holden’s hand, holds him down against the bed maybe too hard.  
  
The nausea fades as Bill pants. He grits his teeth, forces himself not to reprimand Holden. “Put your hand on me. Okay? And try to stay still. I haven’t done this before.”  
  
Holden’s response comes muffled: “You don’t have to.”  
  
“ _Holden,_ ” Bill warns, and Holden complies. Trembling touches, trailing around his hairline, ghosting over the creases beside his eyes, settling into a gentle petting of the grey hair that runs back from his temple. An establishing caress.  
  
Bill lowers his lips down again. The contact has dried out enough that they stick, slide and feel and ineffectual compared to Holden’s puffy shiny wet perfection. Holden groans at once, and there’s a panicked sound from the man beneath him and then Bill tastes, well, semen. It’s not disgusting, not really, not until his mind catches up. Then he finds himself fumbling with urgency. He reaches over, grabbing the abandoned tissue box, spitting up into a folded tissue. He wipes his mouth, and the pulls another tissue out, wipes his lips harder until they’re red-raw.  
  
“You didn’t have to,” Holden says hollowly, pulling the boxers up to cover himself. His hand has slipped off his mouth, on his cheek. Holden wipes at the crust of tears. Fingers trip up and blind the young man to the motel’s overhead light. Bill sees teeth marks, scored in deep and colourless into the inner pads of the digits.  
  
“Sorry. I’m sure you’ve had better,” Bill says, reaching for the mug of whisky, finding it empty.  
  
“I haven’t,” Holden corrects sharply, and then: “I’m the one who should be apologizing. I almost choked you.”

Bill considers that. “Roll over. Hands in the small of your back.”  
  
Holden does.

“If I were your age, and my recovery time was what it used to be, I’d fuck you right now,” Bill says, or perhaps threatens. He can’t tell what the reaction is from Holden, not face down, hiding himself into the still neatly made bedding. Bill locks the folded wrists together with one hand, leans over. “Just like this.” Bill pulls at the waistband of the boxers, finds the burn marks right atop the nice, fleshy round. Velvety all around. Bill is decadent in his exploration of revealed skin. Warm and white as fresh milk, not that Bill’s ever been on a farm to try fresh milk. He imagines Holden tastes creamy pure too. He could leave a nice bite mark for Holden to remember him by, sitting on his bike back to NYC.  
  
“Please,” Holden wheezes into the bedding. _Already good for round two._  
  
Bill pushes over him further, the suggestion of their bodies connected. Holden’s hips arch back to meet him, trying to establish contact.  
  
“Please, _what_ ,” Bill prompts.  
  
“Please, sir.”  
  
The satisfaction has a nasty edge to it. Throwing his weight around with Holden feels good, and it shouldn’t. He drops the grip, rolls over onto the bed. “This is why you should date someone your own age, kid.”  
  
Holden is up, swarming him at once, trying to kiss him on the mouth.  
  
Bill holds him away. “Don’t, _don’t._ I’m not gonna kiss you with-- and I don’t want you kissing me, either,” he grumbles.  
  
Holden settles backwards, disbelieving. “Are you _serious_ ? You’re going to be a prude about this? ...I’ll go brush my teeth, okay?”  
  
Bill can’t look at him. “Fine.” He thinks of Nancy and her post-coital insistence on showering. Holden’s neat freak compulsions don’t seem to extend to bodily fluids. He picks up one of the files still open on the edge of the bed, doesn’t watch Holden redressing himself.  
  
Holden leaves for his adjoining room, swiping Bill’s motel room key without so much as a backwards glance to establish permission. _  
_ _  
_ _I have to start setting boundaries with that boy. ...maybe not fucking him would be a start._ He doesn’t even pretend his resolve is going to hold. _  
_  
Bill also brushes his teeth to try to erase the taste of male orgasm from his mouth and his mind. He closes the bathroom door and wishes he could lock Holden out of the entire single room. His wedding ring catches the sickly green-tinged light, glints accusatory. He walks back to the whisky, pours himself a generous finger that he can’t taste through cloying mint. He carries the drink through, and there’s Holden, already perched on the edge of the bed, like he’s readying a business proposition. Evaluating. As usual.  
  
“I want to keep working the case with you,” Holden says without preamble.  
  
“Really. Holden Ford wants to keep working a case he’s over-involved in,” Bill says into his drink.  
  
“I’m not… over-involved in the case. And I’m not _involved_ with Harry.”  
  
“Have you told _Harry_ that?” _The guy I’m gonna be interviewing tomorrow? Fuck._  
  
Holden blinks naively. “I was using him to cauterize a bleeding wound. The wound’s healed. I’m sorry if I compromised your investigation in any way. I’m going to be able to give this my unfettered focus.”  
  
Bill finds his cigarettes and lights one. Toothpaste and tobacco and expensive scotch. He’s tasted worse. “You have never once, in your fucking life, been unfettered.”  
  
“Observational bias. I’ve never been unfettered around you.”


	2. Chapter 2

It rains that night. Bill hears it loud through the corrugated iron and plasterboard roof as he’s lying rigid and painfully awake, wishing Holden had slept on his own bed. In his own room. But asking him to leave was an impossibility. Holden seems to feel as if he’s earned his place in Bill’s motel bed; Bill doesn’t understand what transpired between them enough to dispute that.

Holden is sleeping hard, curled up and yet encroaching into Bill’s space no matter how much Bill shuffles back. The kid-- the _man,_ Bill reminds himself-- is breathing steadily and quietly, none of the insomnia he’s seen from Holden before, or read about in the psychological analysis of an imprisoned child murderer when that’s all Holden was to him.  
  
Holden Ford has been through so much that Bill can’t be angry at him to the extent that he’s angry at himself. Holden isn’t a child, but it’s not fair to call him an adult either. People become adults with milestones and responsibility and growth. Holden Ford’s life has been metered out in the clinical, traumatic, destabilizing environment of Dodge Correctional. Yet, Bill has seen Holden’s rationality, his undeniable intelligence; the extent of both make Bill wonder if there is someone that can be held accountable beneath layers of trauma and genuine mental illness. He wants to hold someone accountable. Holden pulled him, and his professional credibility, into this case sullied with Holden’s personal involvement and immoral actions. Putting aside Bill’s own weakness, his own inexcusable violation of his marriage, his transgressions against his own family, he finds himself furious with the man sleeping peacefully beside him.  
  
This is a case concerning either five or six poisoned children, a case that Bill justified with to his superiors, and supported irrefutably in meetings, and the hard evidence of paperwork. His signature again and again confirming the merit of the case, denoting his confidence in Holden Ford’s investigative capabilities. Bill couldn’t take a case for personal reasons-- and yet, it’s hard to convince even himself that he wasn’t doing Holden a favour. Let alone his superiors, should this investigation end up the disaster it seems primed to become, and scrutiny fall on Bill’s judgment in taking the case at all.  
  
Harrison Ellis is a source of unpredictability, obviously, showing up to accost Holden like that. Holden himself, mentally ill, prone to outburst of antisocial behaviour, at times ill-aligned with reality, is a source of unpredictability. And Bill’s extra-marital acts have him central to chaos that could derail an investigation. Hell, a career.  
  
He misses Nancy, misses how well he sleeps beside her. Instead, he resents the slumbering Holden Ford. Shirtless, half-wrapped in shared bedsheets, young and dangerous. His presence is enduring evidence of Bill’s own moral failures.  
  
Bill turns his back on Holden. He closes his eyes for a long time without being able to sleep.

 

  
  
But he must sleep, because he wakes up alone. It's no longer raining.

Bill checks the clock beside his bed, once he’s established the empty motel room for what it is. He’d set the alarm for eight, and it’s only quarter past seven. But he’s not going to get back to sleep, and the longer he lies in bed stagnating in guilt, the less functional he’s going to be at the interview with the Ellises.  
  
He feels he should do something drastic, dramatic. Self-flagellate with a brutal, boot camp run, or confront Holden next door, or call Nancy to admit everything and beg for her forgiveness. But it’s much easier to shower. Then shave. Press his suit, dress for the day. Reread the Ellis interviews that LE conducted back in ‘71, and then Holden’s own interviews. Collect up the Holden Ford-contaminated files and heads out to his hire car.  
  
He shouldn’t have told Holden the time his interview was scheduled for. He primed his own ambush: beneath a red and white sign for the Arcadia Motel, and then a black and blue sign proclaiming ‘Swimming Pool’, Holden Ford lies in wait. He’s drinking a take-out coffee, sitting on a low brick wall beside Bill’s car. There’s a book in his hands, ‘The Dose Makes The Poison’, a stark blue cover with a single, stylized drop of red blood behind the text. Toxicology textbook, by the look of it. Bill decides he agrees with title, lights a cigarette in a preemptive measure to steady himself. He’s already had about the dose of Holden Ford he can handle. From here on in, Holden is just poisoning him.  
  
“Coffee?” is the first word out of Holden’s mouth, lifting up a second take-out cup. “It’s black, I couldn't remember how many sugars, so I--”  
  
Bill shakes his head before Holden can even finish the offer. He doesn’t know why he refuses. He would like a coffee.  
  
“Holden,” he greets levelly, looks around the car parking. He can’t see any other motel occupants, and yet, he drops his voice and steps in closer than he should be. “...I need you to listen to me. Carefully.”  
  
Holden raises his chin as he stands, an indexing finger slotting his place in the book. “Yes, Bill?” he asks. Inquisitive, and yet Bill can see a tightening of his features. Bill hopes that Holden knows what’s coming. That will make this easier.  
  
“I’m going to need you you to check out early, get on your bike, and go back to New York. Your presence here is no longer benefiting this investigation. You are only going to jeopardize this case. If that happens, there will be serious consequences for me, and my career at the FBI. There will also, doubtless, be serious economic consequences for you in regards to your book deal, to your private investigation business.”  
  
Bill can see Holden’s jaw clench, flickering muscles, the twitch of his nose. Not much to betray his anger, but enough for someone as experienced as Bill. “How am I going to jeopardize the case?” he asks, bereft of friendliness.  
  
“By being over-involved. By being… emotionally invested in a situation that needs professional detachment to progress smoothly. Do you understand?”  
  
Holden mouths the words ‘emotionally invested’ to himself, brow folding inwards like a silk screen.  
  
“Holden? Am I being clear?”  
  
“You’re being clear. Yes,” Holden robotically parrots, frown lines smoothing out of his face. Probably his prison guard bootlicking conditioning kicking in. He doesn’t even seem to be looking at Bill.  
  
“So you’ll go back to New York?” Bill prompts the unfeeling statue before him.  
  
Holden doesn’t agree to that, verbally, but he turns for his motel room. Bill smokes, watches right up until the door closes behind the tense figure. He’s all torn up at once. If he could ease his own assessment, qualify it down to some harmless, technical dismissal. But Holden wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer if he’d been anything less than brutally harsh.  
  
He’ll make it up to kid, once the case is firmly in professional hands. ...somehow, in a boundary-appropriate manner, he’ll fix things with Holden. Some kind of relationship repair that doesn’t involve one-on-one time.  
  
Holden abandoned his own coffee, and the coffee that he’d offered Bill. Bill doesn’t take it. He stops in a diner for a rushed breakfast, and has coffee there. He evaluates a map of all of the family homes of the dead children to avoid thinking about Harry Ellis, and Holden Ford. A crisscross of intersecting routes to and from school, that only serves to remind Bill of how convoluted his investigation is becoming. And the fact that in the midst of this tangle of infidelity and inappropriate relationships, is Bill himself.

 

  
  
He heads north out of Greenwich township, past the deliberately quaint shops and the elegant steepled churches. One respectable, winding street turns into another. Greenery is plastered and splayed around every turn, though certain species of deciduous oaks and sour gum are beginning to cede to the rusty autumnal spread. He’s in the midst of a vast transition. Bill feels as if he’s imposing himself on some crucial moment in this town’s history. He kills the radio-- dreamy psychedelic pop-- and winds down a window to refresh the car’s well-sunned interior. The cool, revived air takes him away from his uncharacteristic whimsy. He finds a professional clarity in the silence. Bill consults his roadmap, again. His hire car passes low cobbled walls; then fruit trees; pristine lawns between sweeps of manicured forestry; a woman trimming roses.

The huge houses are sparsely dotted amongst the lush woods. His slow cruise down Pheasant Lane trying to spot house numbers has him six or seven minutes late, but he finds the number fifteen on an elegant white letterbox. He turns up the tree-lined, curved driveway. The house is atop a gentle slope, not quite a hill. A folksy, woodland charm, very removed from the surrounding, pristine mansions. Rocks surface like gators amongst contoured lawn, and there’s something romantic about the unshaped oaks and ashes. The house is vast, beige and white, multi-windowed. Anchored into traditional right-angles like some over-proliferated cottage. Bill figured Harrison Ellis was wealthy-- Greenwich is a very expensive town, not to mention the apartment in New York simply for convenience-- but now it occurs to him that Ford might not be on the reduced rates that Bill had assumed he’d taken for his first major P.I. case.  
  
Bill parks in the turning circle before the Ellis family home. The same home that Julian Ellis died in, per Holden’s notes. Not that the location of his death is of particular significance; the poisoning certainly did not occur within this home, not with the other four children geographically removed and also fatally poisoned by arsenic.  
  
The five dead children had been together at school, left from class together according to a witnessing teacher, heading north on a suburban street. And then, no sightings for approximately two hours, which was apparently not an unusual duration for the children to play together after school. Bill had found the repeated testimony to that effect odd, but now that he’s in the pristine, affluent neighborhood he sees why children would have been allowed to roam free, and he sees the tracts of wood and creeks where they could have slipped beyond sight. As an FBI agent, the idea of his own son wandering the streets at the tender age of eight is a nightmare. Maybe, if he were a rich housewife, in a town where bad things didn’t happen...  
  
But Bill is without the luxury of naïvety.  
  
Through the Bureau he’s seen many cases, and many dead kids. Brian’s schedule, wherever Bill can lay influence, is closely supervised.  
  
Even in the fairytale suburbia of Greenwich, there’s dead children standing unclaimed on every corner, lingering in every understated, colonial-inspired mansion.  
  
Julian, and another boy died in their homes. Three children had been together at a bus stop when serious onset of symptoms occurred. All five died within hours in Greenwich Hospital, barely a few miles away. It had taken autopsies for arsenic poisoning to be established. Then, a police investigation, which trailed off into a local poison control investigation when the local PD decided that evidence was insufficient to establish foul play. The poison control had found a rat poison containing arsenic in the preparatory school’s janitorial supplies. The school had been closed for a week, several members of the janitorial staff and one administrator fired, and then it had been reopened.  
  
Then, mourning. Then, peace.  
  
A couple of months later, Greenwich Hospital recorded another fatal arsenic poisoning. There was an investigation into local water sources having natural crystal arsenic deposits, into pest-baiting around a local park, into pesticides used on a golf course half a mile away. Bill agrees with Holden’s summation: the pattern of poisoning cases rings intentional. That every poisoning has been lethal almost immediately discounts a tainted water supply, foodstuffs, accidental consumption. If there was a source of arsenic contamination, Bill would expect ten non-lethal poisonings for every death. But there's no non-lethal poisoning, that have been unearthed by the initial investigators, or later Holden. A perfect strike rate.

Bill’s curiosity lies not with the house as a potential crime scene, but simply as a retained address. After the death of a child in a family home, bereaved parents usually start afresh. But the Ellises have lived on in this oversized home, childless, unflinching against the tragedy that they are yet seeking to understand.  
  
Perhaps in Mr. Ellis’ case, the changed preference in gender of sexual partners satisfied his need for a fresh start.  
  
Bill tries to suppress that unsympathetic thought as he knocks on the heavy front door.  
  
It’s Jennifer Ellis that answers, or at least, Bill assumes it must be from the expectant expression. She’s very short, is the first detail that prevails itself upon him, even in the orange block heels. Short, and blandly pretty. Her hair is neatly parted, a fraction off-center, dark blonde and very long. If it’s dyed, it’s a salon job. She’s dressed in flared khaki pants with a bottle green knitted shirt with beaded detailing around the neckline. The clothing looks expensive, in a haute couture way. Much more New York than New England. The jewelry looks very expensive too. He wonders if the diamonds are explicit apologies for philandering, or simply undisclosed manifestations of a guilty conscience.  
  
“Mrs. Ellis,” he greets, trying to stifle the pity out of his voice. He manages to keep that down, but there’s a scratchy echo of guilt around her married name. Like overplayed, bootlegged vinyl.  
  
“Special Agent Tench. I’m so grateful for you coming-- _Harry_ ,” she interrupts herself to call over one shoulder. Bill must be on edge; he’s reminded of the Creightons, despite that he’s done a hundred other, less sinister home calls in his time. And there’s no facet of similarity with that pair of criminals, not this pleasant women in the pleasant doorway of her pleasant home. Jennifer’s outward appearance is so distinguished that Bill is blown away by the geniality that has transformed her features into no-longer-bland prettiness. A little like Jacqueline Bisset, he thinks. And there’s that genuine gratitude directed his way.  
  
Not every rich person Bill interviews is aloof and entitled. ...but, most of them are. Especially in the direction of law enforcement. Like their higher tax bracket has bought them preferential treatment and all the man hours their heart desires. Jenny Ellis doesn’t seem that way. Bill feels the niggling anger at Holden take on a new dimension.  
  
“I’m so grateful that someone has finally taken Julian’s death seriously,” she says, finally finishing her self-interrupted sentiment.  
  
“I’m certain that there’s been many diligent investigators before me, ma’am, but I promise you, I take this case very seriously,” Bill replies non-committal and friendly. He keeps up his mild, forced smile as he awaits Harry’s arrival.  
  
He can hear slow movement first; the man who rounds the corner is shuffling, lethargic with anxiety Bill suspects, and he has the tingling evidence of perspiration adorning his crown and upper lip. He’s wearing an open-necked shirt, casual khaki pants. A contrast to the suit Bill saw last night, but it’s a Saturday, which is probably a day off even for head of sales at Echo Publishing. He’s not a remarkable looking man, but Bill supposes that he isn’t either. It might be Holden Ford’s unhealthy predilections towards older men. Tall men, greyed with age. Blue eyes, that aren’t meeting his own.  
  
Bill finds himself sizing this man up, though in what capacity, Bill doesn’t even know himself. Competition? A potential suspect? Someone that might have put two and two together about the adjoining rooms? Last night, Bill was genuinely considering about driving over and laying this guy out for taking advantage of Holden. Now, that seems a fellow sinner casting the first stone.  
  
“Harry, this is--” Jenny begins, her manner suffused with rehearsed social graces.  
  
“We met last night,” Bill states plainly, squaring his shoulders.  
  
“When I went to drop those documents off with Holden,” Harry Ellis says, a beat too late. When he's not bellowing in Holden's face, calling him a whore, Ellis' manner is posh, almost superior.  
  
If there’s suspicion, or straightforward awareness of the Harry’s affair, Bill sees none of it. Jenny smiles, a slight overbite which makes her look less doll-like, and far more attractive. “Holden’s not coming today?”  
  
“Probably best I start this with fresh eyes,” Bill says, and then when he sees Jenny’s forehead wrinkle with curiosity, “Holden had to head back to New York for school.”  
  
He can’t tell if her tiny sigh is relief, or disappointment. “Well, then, come on in, Special Agent Tench. Would you care for a coffee?”  
  
“Sure. If it’s no imposition,” Bill says, closely taking in the house’s layout though he has no reason at all to. There’s a double staircase wrapped around a spacious hallway towards what must be the dining room, with the long table he can see. The floor is all polished wood, checkered grain against grain, which seems inhospitable to children. Maybe it was carpet, before Julian died. Now, there are no children.  
  
“I’ll grab the tray,” Harry says, setting off through one of the many hallways, towards what must be the kitchen. Bill feels lost in a home this size.  
  
“So you’re heading up the investigation?” Jenny asks, passing by a dark wood balustrade.  
  
Bill continues his examination of the home. He sees himself in a gilt framed mirror, looks ahead to Jenny Ellis. “We haven’t established foul play, ma’am. I’m investigating a series of deaths to determine whether they are intentional, and a criminal case, or unintentional, in which instance, I will be turning over evidence to the Connecticut Poison Center and the AAPCC, the American Association of Poison Control Centers. Those agencies will find the source of the accidental poisoning, and ensure that there are no repeats.” He hears himself dwindle to uninspiring.  
  
Jenny’s lips twitch, though she takes a moment to reply. “Holden says it’s an intentional--”  
  
“Mr. Ford is not a trained member of law enforcement, and his opinions on his case are accordingly,” Bill interrupts, and then realizes how harsh he sounds. To a woman who is essentially Holden’s employer. “He has asserted, that based on the pattern of deaths, the poisoning is likely to have been a deliberate act. ...his investigative write-up was compelling enough to get me here,” he adds.  
  
“He’s very compelling,” Jenny agrees smoothly, and Bill wonders, again, if she suspects her husband’s affair. She’s walking through, past the dining room, into an interior decorating magazine photoshoot of a lounge room. The armchairs are a lemony yellow, the couch and footstools green velvet. The windows open onto a porch, and a sloping back lawn, and a huge glacial rock jutting in the center of the arbour.  
  
“You have a lovely home,” Bill says routinely, though it’s actually true in this case.  
  
She smiles in agreement, but bows her head a fraction. “I had this image in my head. From Holden’s book,” she comments as she folds onto the couch. She’s tilting her head, squinting, like Bill Tench is a stereoscopic illusion not yet availing himself fully.  
  
“Thought I’d be older?” Bill asks, settling into an armchair, setting files within reach on a coffee table. There are daffodils that match the room’s decor. “He’s a kid. He probably thinks I’m prehistoric because I’ve--”  
  
“No!” she interrupts, and laughs. “No, I had you down as William Reynolds. You know, from ‘The F.B.I.’? I suppose you wouldn’t watch a silly show like-- I mean, goodness, you actually live this out the arrests and the crime-solving--” she trails off, and laughs again, though this time it sounds uncomfortable. “But here you are. My age. Special Agent Bill Tench, in the flesh. More real than real life.”  
  
Jennifer gauging them the same age seems generous, on Bill’s side. He’d be surprised if this woman is much older than thirty-five, though he’d admit that if she’s had work done, she could afford the best. Seven years since her eight year old son died, which is fifteen years of her life accounted for. Bill thinks she’d have had him young; twenty, twenty-one, which Bill hypocritically thinks is bordering on a distasteful age gap. Harry is in his late forties, at least, perhaps early fifties.  
  
_So Jennifer married young, to a man who was never even interested in her. And then lost her child, too. How is she still finding it in herself to smile? ...maybe Harry does love her, but not enough for fidelity-- I mean, I loves Nancy, don’t I?_ Bill clears his throat, realizing he’s fallen silent for too long. “Sorry to disappoint. I can call back to Quantico, see if they can replace me with Special Agent, uh--”  
  
“Colby. Special Agent Tom Colby, that’s William Reynold’s character,” she says, a curled hand resting on her chin. “I’m sorry. I must sound vacuous, comparing your work to my television fantasies. ...but, you’ve read the manuscript, haven’t you?”  
  
Bill shakes his head. He readjusts his caught suit jacket against the embossed yellow fabric of the armchair. “Holden-- Mr. Ford, said he would send me a copy of the completed book.”  
  
“You _have_ to read it. ...though, I suppose, again, not so exciting for you. You were there, after all. And midnight standoffs in deep, dark forests are all in a day’s work. A night’s work?” she corrects herself, with the same charming smile.  
  
“Not… entirely, no. Holden’s life was at stake, so I-- it wasn’t protocol, I had to make decisions under pressure--” Bill is saved from his awkward humbled muttering by Harrison Ellis, returning with coffee. A full tray, milk jugs, a sugar jar. A matching set, sunflowers embossed onto orange pyrex. Bill takes his black with two spoonfuls of sugar, feeling every beat of the broken off conversation.  
  
“I could hear-- um-- you’re talking about the book, right? I expect it’ll be a best-seller on Jenny’s recommendations alone. Have everyone in town onto it. She loves her detective stories. It’s a very exciting read, Holden really knows how to tell a story. And she hasn’t even read the--” Harry must see Bill’s scowl, because he ceases his praise of Holden Ford’s authorial prowess. “I’m sorry. I know you’re a busy man. You must want to get into your reason for visiting.”  
  
Jenny’s eyes widen, abashed. “Oh. Of course. I’m sorry, Agent Tench--”  
  
“Bill is fine, really,” Bill says, lowering the coffee from his lips.  
  
“Okay. Bill. I’m sorry to side-track this conversation with the Madison case. We’re very grateful that you came out. Nobody has wanted to look into Julian’s death for a long, long time,” Jenny says. Her tone has grown condemnatory again, not of Bill, but of the other investigators that have failed to solve her son’s death. All of the brightness, the enthusiasm, is sapped out of the agreeable features. Replaced with a hardened focus, the same focus he’s seen before, on the parents of deceased and missing children.  
  
Bill can’t begin to understand the pain either of these people have been through; he won’t let himself imagine Brian dead, not even as an empathetic thought exercise. Besides, there’s no point imagining. You’ve either lived that loss, or you haven’t. And Bill is blessed with an inability to relate. “If you don’t mind,” he says, gravely.  
  
“That’s why you’re here,” Harry says, finally looking up from the coffee he has been meditating into.  
  
Bill feels the creep to professionalism over personal sympathy. He succumbs to compartmentalization. The very same compartmentalization that Doctor Carr claimed he didn’t do during investigations. She’s wrong; Bill isn’t emotionally equipped to internalize these six dead children. Not after Madison. Special Agent Tench might be.  
  
He moves his coffee closer, holding the saucer to just rest on a knee. He can feel the emanating heat of the coffee, even through layers of pyrex and fabric. “If you don’t mind, we’ll start right from the beginning,” Special Agent Tench says. “I know Holden’s interviewed you both several times, and there will be some rehashing, but I don’t want you to worry about the answers you gave him. You tell me the events, as you remember them, and I’ll form as complete a picture as I can, given the interim of time that has elapsed since Julian’s death.”

 

To Holden’s credit, Bill’s interview doesn’t unearth much in the way of new information. Their story is tattered with time, edges scuffed away by the unreliability of human memory. And, in places, refurbished with details that seem too meticulously laid out, and too close to initial interviews to be true recollections any more. But Bill hears the truth, even when Jenny and Harry parrot their own recollections from seven years ago instead of drawing from memory afresh. Harry cries, and Jenny hands him tissues. Her own voice fails over benign details: where Julian would buy things in town, how he’d got along with neighbours. But there are no tears from Jennifer Ellis.  
  
Finally, Bill pulls free the photographs: school photos all of them, except the potential sixth poisoning case, Zachariah Perry, who had been home-schooled.  
  
He clusters Julian Ellis with the another eight year old boy, one nine year old boy, one eight year old girl, one nine year old girl. Julian, Lucas, Casey, Henrietta, Daisy. Classmates, and close friends by all accounts. They would have all been nine by the end of 1971. If they’d made it to the end of 1971. He removes photos one by one, spreads them out on the glass coffee table, beside where he has settled his empty coffee cup and saucer. Bill can see inside the bright block colour pyrex; right down to the dark particulates staining the glossy white. He looks closely at coffee grounds instead of dead children.  
  
And then, separately, divided by age and by the elapse of two full months, he settles a non-school-photo of Zachariah and a school photo of Jackson. Thirteen and fourteen, respectively. Jackson, another confirmed arsenic poisoning. Zachariah, a potential misdiagnosis of hepatitis. Potential, Bill tells himself. Holden isn’t certain. Without the later deaths, Bill wouldn’t be out here in Connecticut. They separate this case from a one-time source of arsenic contamination, to a much more disturbing, cyclical narrative.

In his notes, Holden had said that the poisoner may have graduated to less forensically evident chemicals, or may have simply exhausted his supply of the chemically pure, inorganic arsenic salt that Holden's toxicologist contact believes did the damage in '71. Bill, unfortunately, has to give some weight to that analysis.

If this was a malicious act, they’re looking at a potential repeat offender, which means the investigative scope will need to expand beyond arsenic, and beyond Greenwich.

Jenny and Harry are only looking at one photo: their son, Julian Ellis. His hair was bright, light blonde. Tucked behind large ears. Blue eyes, squinting into the camera flash, half-smiling, forever.  
  
Bill reaches for the thirteen and fourteen year olds’ pictures. “There’s a connection between at least one of these boys, and one of the children in Greenwich hospital alongside your son. Maybe a connection to your son.” He readjusts the photos, angled between them. They’ll have seen the photos, but Bill hasn’t seen their reaction.  
  
“Holden told me the Seventh-day Adventist homeschool boy probably died a natural death,” Harrison says, morosely examining the teenagers.  
  
“Holden and I disagree on that point,” Bill says, finding himself frustrated. Private investigators shouldn’t be let anywhere near serious criminal investigations, that’s the FBI line. It’s a good rule, and he should stick to it, even where it regards Holden Ford.  
  
“I can’t say Julian never met them,” Jenny says, and sighs. “But I can’t think how they’d know each other. He was at the local high school, wasn’t he? The Hastings boy. His mother used to be at some local fundraisers, that sort of thing. She had a girl who was the year below Julian, but she was at North Street, not at Brunswick.”  
  
Bill nods, slowly. Holden Ford, and other investigators before him, had well and truly covered this.  
  
The three of them stare at the pair of long dead teenagers as if regarding something on a museum wall. Like some block colour modern artwork that Bill can’t wrap his head around, no matter how long he considers it. Maybe it’s just a plain red painted canvas. Maybe it’s just a photo of two dead kids.  
  
“Thank you for your time,” Bill says, trying to hide the mild disappointment he feels about the interview. He has to, reluctantly, acknowledge Holden’s thoroughness. He packs the photos away, picks the file up under one arm.  
  
Jenny doesn’t move.  
  
Bill doesn’t blame her for the lapsed politeness. “Thank you for the coffee. I can show myself to--”  
  
“I’ll walk you out,” Harrison Ellis says, standing, discarding the tissue he’d been using.  
  
Bill considers refusing, but there’s no particularly tactful way of doing as much in front of his wife.  
  
Jenny has come to, enough to speak. “Thank you so much for your time, Bill. You have our number. Call, please, if you need anything at all,” she says, but she doesn’t look up. She’s staring right through the glass tabletop, where the photo of Julian had been.  
  
“Thank you. I’ll do my best to keep you updated,” he says, though he shouldn’t. He steps away through the high ceilings of the stately home. Harry follows him, right out the front door.  
  
Mr. Ellis doesn’t speak until they’re beyond the arching front entrance, rounding a hedge, almost at Bill’s parked car. “If Holden-- if Mr. Ford--” he begins, in a raspy, secretive tone.  
  
Bill turns and cuts him off. “Mr. Ellis, I think the best thing for the integrity of this case, and for you personally, would be ceasing contact with Holden Ford. Mail him the cheque for whatever your agreed upon contract was, and leave things at that. ...I’m handling this case now, and I’m going to need you to let me do my job. That means un-entangling yourself from this investigation, Mr. Ellis.”  
  
“Sir, if there’s been some misunderstanding about--” Ellis says.  
  
“I think your wife will be waiting for you.”  
  
But Mr. Ellis isn’t satisfied. Bill wishes he had an excuse to draw his gun again, and end this conversation, an impulse which really should preclude him from carrying a loaded firearm.  
  
Harry brushes a product-laden cowlick upright from his forehead, struggling for words. “I--”  
  
“Inside,” Bill says, more pointedly. “You should go back inside, to your wife, Mr. Ellis.”  
  
But Harrison Ellis is frozen. He's looking over Bill’s shoulder, down the rolling green slope. Bill hears it, first. A motorcycle. His expression has hardened even before he turns around to the lithe, dismounting figure.  
  
Holden waves with two fingers, unbuckles the helmet, folds sunglasses down and hangs them over the neck of his t-shirt.  
  
Bill turns away without a reciprocal greeting.   
  
Harrison Ellis’ throat works through an uneasy swallow. He, on the other hand, seems unable to keep his eyes off Holden.  
  
Footsteps bounce snappily up the pale concrete driveway. “Hey, Bill. Hey, Harry,” Holden greets, perfectly amicably, so Bill has to turn around to acknowledge him. Holden's shoulders are back, helmet beneath one arm. His hair is a little tousled, his leather jacket open, a shirt buttoned below the t-shirt beneath. Bill thinks-- thinks for one second Holden is _smirking_ as he looks between the two men at the top of the driveway.  
  
“Holden,” Harry says, slow and faltering. Bill sees him turn his wedding band with the pad of his thumb. “I thought you’d gone back to New York? ..for school?”  
  
Holden redirects Bill’s way, descended into calm analysis. “I changed my mind. Called and fixed up my scheduling to accommodate this case,” he prevaricates. It’s undeniably a smirk now. He's coolly,  _cruelly_ composed.   
  
Bill finds it skin-crawling to behold how casually Holden can lie. Even if it is Bill’s own deception, being deftly readjusted. Picked that up in the slammer. Or maybe that's just how Holden Ford is. He folds his arms as he watches Holden and Harry’s seemingly professional interaction.  
  
“My focus is on solving this case. You don’t need to worry about split priorities,” Holden tells his employer and ex-lover, polite and reassuring.  
  
“...I appreciate that,” Mr. Ellis says slowly. The tone seems meaningful, but Bill can’t discern subtext.  
  
Holden holds his smile for another moment before turning. “Bill, I have the address that Zachariah Perry lived at in 1971. I was planning on walking his potential route to town that you mentioned yesterday,” he informs Bill, optimistic and level. Holden looks like such an upstanding young man, aside from the moto jacket. You’d never know. “I was hoping you’d join me. An official hand in this investigation would be much appreciated.”  
  
Bill feels the same fury that he felt opposite Holden Ford, child murderer. But he smiles too. “Well, sure, Mr. Ford. You take the lead.”


	3. Chapter 3

The motorbike flits in front of his car, dark and darting in the beaming sunlight. A droning insect, though not a particularly loud one for the size of the vehicle. Holden has invested in a good muffler, Bill thinks. As discreet as the mode of transport could possibly be, but still probably the only motorbike in Greenwich. This social strata veers towards Mercedes and Rolls Royces and Italian sports cars. Holden parks the outlandish transport just off the road, on a patch of gravel by a low stone wall. Bill veers in behind, and lets himself out of his midrange, American made hire car.  
  
The Perry’s previous home is one of the more ostentatious architectural displays that Bill has seen in the neighborhood; obviously built in the last decade, lots of domed windows, lots of glass bricks. Still, columns, and sandstone bricks. Trying to protest that it might well be a genuine artifact. Even the house itself seems defensive of how nouveau riche it is.  
  
“Televangelism. Hell of a racket,” Holden jokes, as the motorcycle helmet comes off.  
  
Bill approaches, making an effort to martial his breathing. He wants to yell, but he settles for detached directness. “I meant what I said this morning, Holden. I’m handling this. Get on your bike, and go back to New York.”  
  
Holden folds his leather jacket, looking around the street and obviously deciding there’s no risk of stolen property. Not in this stretch of Greenwich. He tucks it on the seat, hangs his helmet from a handlebar. “I’m here to work, Bill,” he says, as he straightens up, rolling his shirt sleeves over his forearms.  
  
It’s very warm. Bill should probably leave his suit jacket in the car, but he likes being elevated from Holden with his professional attire. Remind Holden of the difference between the two of them. “Obviously not. This is you, trying to get a rise out of me. That’s why you showed up to the Ellis’ place, while I was there.”  
  
“Not everything is about you, Bill. ...oh,” Holden murmurs, drops his voice. “ _Oh_ , you thought I meant all that bullshit I said last night? You think I’m all twisted up over you?”  
  
Bill folds his arms instead of responding.  
  
“I was saying exactly what you wanted to hear. I could tell you were getting skittish,” Holden murmurs. There’s an intimate unkindness about him. “.. _the best man I’ve ever met_? You were committing adultery,” he adds, and scoffs. “And I’m the one with delusions? I’ve got some spare Largactil in my bag if you need--”  
  
“Fuck you, Ford,” Bill says, turning down the road, walking fast.  
  
Holden jogs to catch up. “Have I hurt your feelings? Maybe you’re too emotionally invested in this case. You should head on back to Virginia,” the young man says, filled with faux-concern. “Let me handle it.”  
  
Bill turns, finger raised. “Watch. Yourself.”  
  
Both palms come up, as if Bill is some brute, some wild animal that needs non-verbal communication to get messages across. “Okay. Consider myself watched. Now, pull it together, Bill, and let’s solve this case,” Holden says with affected brightness, setting off down the street.  
  
“Get on your bike, Ford. Last time I tell you that so politely. From now on we’re going to broach the territory of non-polite conversation.”  
  
“I need to continue working on this case. Or there will be serious, how did you put it, ‘economic consequences’? ...if I don’t do my job, if this case doesn’t get solved, I’m responsible for that failure.”  
  
“It’s in the hands of professionals now, Mr. Ford.”  
  
Holden has the audacity to raise an eyebrow. He looks older, in harsh overhead sunlight. Finally seems the thirty year old man he is. “I’m a professional too, Bill. Like I said, I’m doing _my job_. That I’m being paid to do.”  
  
Bill could tell Holden that he’d instructed Harrison Ellis to settle their account, but Holden would jump right on that as more evidence of ‘emotional investment’. Or, perhaps, start lambasting Bill for interfering in his personal affairs. “ _Right._ How much is Harry paying you? To ‘investigate the case’? Very nice house in a very nice neighborhood. I bet he can afford whatever your retainer is, and a little on top of that,” Bill says, sweet enough for cavities.  
  
Holden’s shoulders tense, but he doesn’t turn. “I am working my ass off to solve this case. I have shirked school, I have spent sleepless night researching, I have driven out here every day I can, to pore over hospital records, school reports. I’ve been to eight of the nearest hospitals to look into possible poisonings, I’ve sat around in basement archives giving myself hayfever sorting through admissions that might have been misdiagnoses. And I’ve packaged it up so neat, so compellingly, that I got the goddamn FBI on board with my investigation. I’m not an amateur.”  
  
“Not an amateur? Your contribution to this case thus far has been potentially tanking the entire thing before it starts, by screwing around with one of the key figures in this investigation _._ You’re not law enforcement, Holden. And you’re sure as shit not FBI.” Bill regrets the comment immediately.  
  
Holden doesn’t break step down the grassy strip beside the road. “I’m sure as shit not FBI,” he echoes, sounding almost smug. “Because then I’d be sitting on my ass, waiting for someone else to put in the legwork on a case before I’d even give it a second glance.”  
  
Bill stops to light his cigarette. His fingers are trembling with pent up rage. He has to raise his voice, to call on ahead to the young man. “Then why’d you drag me into this, Holden? If you were doing so fucking well on your own?”  
  
Holden turns around, a sneer signposting the coming insult. But he blinks instead, whatever he’d been about to hurl in Bill’s direction nixed. He contorts back to an assuaging smile, gestures to their right, to a street-set home. Slated roofing, red bricks, pretty pink carnations lining the paved walkway. Front facing windows. “I doubt the first poisoning occurred on a street like this. Somewhere more like Pheasant Avenue, where the houses were set back. It’s like the Madison case, you know? People don’t want to commit crimes in daylight in full view of prying neighbours.”  
  
Bill sniffs acknowledgment. He’s too riled up to just fall back into calm discussion of the case. “Jenny Ellis sure seems to like the Madison case,” he remarks, trying to sound offhand. “If you’re interested in being a kept man, maybe you could get a two for one deal on married, grieving parents--”  
  
“Who are you grieving?” Holden asks with feigned misunderstanding. And then, as if he’s realizing his error: “Oh. The other married parent you’re referring to is Jenny, right? Not you. My mistake.”  
  
“You and I are not-- you are not employed by me, Holden. There’s no deal between us.”  
  
“No. Because that would jeopardize your career, wouldn’t it? If it were found out this case was taken for any reason other than your unassailable, _professional_ judgment.”  
  
“...is that a threat? You, of all people, really want to start pissing off law enforcement?”  
  
“It’s not a threat, but I’m not afraid of you, Bill. You wouldn’t tank your marriage, your FBI career, out yourself as a queer--”  
  
“I’m not a--” Bill begins, unable to finish his defensive retort.  
  
Holden sighs as he turns back, to continue down the road, scanning the properties they’re passing. “It didn’t happen on a street like this one,” he says, quietly. “Maybe-- I mean, there has to be some modus operandi, right? Nobody is that happy-go-lucky with mass poisonings. I’ve looked up other murderers that used arsenic--”  
  
“We don’t know it’s intentional, Holden, we have no proof--” Bill starts, beleaguered.  
  
Holden is deaf to critique. “--but nobody ever wants to ask them about the specifics of their crimes, you know? It’s a binary. Did you, didn’t you. Not why, not how, not the thought processes or the psychological underpinnings of their behaviour. If we knew why she poisoned these kids--”  
  
“Oh, so now our possibly fictive murderer has a definitive gender. This is great stuff, Holden. You sure you don’t want to write this down?”  
  
“Why _they_ poisoned the kids that they did,” Holden corrects himself. “If we understood the psychological motivations for this murder, I’d be able to form a more coherent picture of the perpetrator.”  
  
“One, the poisoning is still not established to be a crime, and I’m getting a little sick of repeating myself on that point. Two, _if_ this is a criminal case, means are gonna trump motive as an investigative tool. Motive is a bad place to start; the first investigation has already gone into the families of victims, asked the teachers about bullying at school, turned up nothing, Holden. If we figure out the method through which the crime was committed, what the actual chemical formula of the poison used was, how the kids ingested it, we’d be a lot closer to solving the case. Practical details are more useful than psychobabble about the rich inner life of your hypothetical poisoner.”  
  
“The Madison case hinged upon--”  
  
“Well, Holden, this isn’t the Madison case. There is more than one type of case. Which you would know, if you were law enforcement, if you had any breadth of experience _whatsoever_.”  
  
Holden ignores that. “There’s something clumsy about the crimes, about the timing. They were so lucky all those kids died so quick, that nobody asked them the right questions when they were first hospitalized, before they fell unconscious. ...so, an early adolescent offender? Someone these kids were afraid of. Just beginning to explore psychopathic behaviour, escalating sadistic acts. The act of poisoning has a certain cruelty, no? A ...vindictiveness. And poison is a female tool, statistically.”  
  
“Doctor Carr, have you cut your hair? Something’s different,” Bill says sarcastically, and then, “Holden. You’re grasping at straws. I can _hear_ you grasping at straws. I can hear them rustling as they slip between your fingers.”  
  
“You can hear me trying to solve the case. A disappointingly lonesome undertaking. You seem more intent on attacking my character than contributing to the investigation,” Holden says, staunchly. They’ve reached an intersection, one road forging off left, another heading around a wide, wind-dappled pond, hedged in with bulrush. Holden is referencing the street map, then eying off the two potential routes.  
  
“Unfounded speculation does not contribute to the case,” Bill informs him, coming to a stop too. He drops his smoked down cigarette, extinguishes the butt beneath the heel of his shoe. Then Bill feels guilty for littering this wholesome scene.  
  
Holden turns to get the most out of his eye roll. “But rehashing already exhaustive interviews, that’s a worthwhile contribution. Thank god Quantico could spare you.”  
  
“Wouldn’t be the first time Holden Ford missed a crucial case detail. Like, say, Tony Bradshaw.” Bill immediately regrets mentioning the name. Holden overlooked Bradshaw’s involvement in the Madison killings, sure. It’s also a human life, a life that Holden Ford brought to a swift, extralegal close. To protect Bill, too. Bill shouldn’t mention Bradshaw.  
  
But Holden seems unfettered. The kid is laughing as he folds the streetmap back into his pocket. “You want to rehash this argument?”  
  
Bill tries for threatening, instead: “No. I want you to back the fuck out of a federal investigation, boy.”  
  
Holden’s smile notches itself wider, though there’s nothing happy about it. Bill realizes, too late, his tacit admission of this case as a criminal investigation.  
  
A single leaf is falling, from a sickly yellowed oak. It clings to Holden’s shoulder for a moment, and stumbles downwards as if reluctant to let go. Both men watch the curled shell of life take to the asphalt. Holden breaks the transfixed silence. “Tell me, Bill, why did you _really_ come out? Needed a break from Nancy?”  
  
Bill stalks forward, and Holden doesn’t move, doesn't recoil. Bill’s hand is on the collar of his shirt, dragging him to tiptoes. He pushes the unresisting boy against the high whitewashed fence, but his anger is already waning. He should have recognized this behaviour sooner. This is Holden Ford preemptively imploding relationships he detects instability in. The realization has him trying to conceal any emotion, not out of kindness, but to deny Holden the certainty he’s angling at. “You know nothing about Nancy,” he tells Holden, serious, sombre, despite the suggested violence of their position. “You’ve never met her. My actions do not reflect upon my family. I am capable of something called personal responsibility, Holden. You might wanna look that up in one of your psych undergrad textbooks.”  
  
Holden’s fucking smile is still going strong. “I’m not talking about Nancy, Bill. I’m talking about why _you_ came to Connecticut. What _you_ wanted.”  
  
“What I wanted? I wanted a partner I could rely on, a partner I could trust. But you-- you are not what I want, Holden Ford.” Bill watches with satisfaction as the grin falls. He drops his harsh hold, and steps away.  
  
Holden looks back down at the fence post he’d been shoved into. He’s tracing a scratched initial in a fence post, at his hip height. He speaks, very soft. “Kids must come this way. Not necessarily our dead kids. That pond connects to the creek that passes right by the Ellis house, and I think the woodland track extends right down to North Street, so you’d get traffic coming after school. One of us should walk that way,” he suggests. “You go straight ahead. I’ll try offroad.”  
  
Bill looks down the pathway he’s been assigned. A meandering oblivion of letterboxes, of summer-thick foliage, the edge of a fenced off private tennis court. “And what are you expecting to find? What are you expecting either of us to find here, exactly, Holden?”  
  
Holden doesn’t meet Bill’s eyes. He’s looking backwards, through the wooden fence posts. Another manor, this one even older. An ivied facade, curtained off windows, and a detached stable. An old apple tree, laden with shiny, late harvest red. Holden pretends to be evaluating a home he’ll never have any hope of affording. Not even Jenny’s aggressive spruiking is going to get Holden’s novel sales up to whatever astronomical figures he’d need for this Greenwich lifestyle.  
  
Bill’s not feeling superior, because he sure as hell isn’t ever going to live this lifestyle either.  
  
“I-- I think we should split up,” Holden reaffirms, still refusing to meet Bill’s eyes. “We’ll cover more ground.”  
  
Bill is so glad for the excuse to be away from Holden, he doesn’t bother pushing his point about the pointlessness of this investigative exercise. He takes off, at a brisk pace, down the dappled road. He doesn’t look back. He looks ahead, and to either side. Another sprawled mansion, this one with children playing in the yard. A soccer ball, pale red, tumbling over manicured grass. A boy and a girl, the older sister patiently resetting the kick for her younger brother. Bill sees their mother watching over them, and relaxes. He almost waves, but his suits aren’t nice enough to pass as a resident. She holds her hand against the sun to watch him pass. Her eyes are in shadow, but the blonde curls that for a moment remind him of Nancy. Bill looks away.  
  
He continues on.  
  
It’s a long walk for a kid to make to town, Bill has to retroactively acknowledge. He has his suit jacket off and folded over one arm, tie hanging loose, sweat forming on his forehead and tickling between his shoulder blades. By the time he’s reached more metropolitan Greenwich he wants to sit down and eat lunch, maybe drink a cold beer. He perseveres with the search. He’s looking for arcades, hang outs for young people, libraries, something that might motivate a bored kid this far from home. It was his theory, about Zachariah heading into town while his mother was at church group. And he sure would like to prove Holden wrong about his exclusion. And solve the case, he reminds himself.  
  
No teenage boy enticements jump out, but it has been seven years since Zachariah died. This is hardly a humdrum town, but it’s plenty of time for a kid-friendly business to come and go. Bill walks a couple of blocks, passes another high steepled church in the middle of a wedding service, rounds a few more corners of well-dressed families and intent, recreational shoppers. He notices the sign for Greenwich Hospital, and walks idly in that direction. He squints through more oaks at tanned bricks, a manicured garden beds of white hydrangeas. Like everything else in this town, it appears respectable, benevolent, despite the countless deaths that have no doubt occurred within. Bill is thinking of a few very specific deaths as he stands on a bustling street opposite the town’s medical center.  
  
But Zachariah Perry didn’t walk all this way to visit a hospital.  
  
Bill doesn’t have the energy to traipse back into suburbia, to reexamine the living conditions of the resplendently wealth in excruciating detail. Besides, now he’s thinking it was probably a friend, or a girlfriend, someone who Zachariah didn’t have to walk all of three miles to see. No kid is that bored, hungry, or horny.  
  
Bill finds a phone, orders a taxi, keeps half an eye out for Holden Ford as he waits for it on a main road. The taxi pulls to the curb without a sighting of the young man. Probably for the best Bill doesn’t have to see his de facto partner.  
  
He doesn’t see Holden during the overpriced lift back to his hire car, either. He sifts through the case files sitting on his passenger’s seat. Holden Ford’s _“legwork”_ has already unearthed the names of Zachariah Perry’s parents, an address in Stamford, CT, and a phone number. He watches the parked motorcycle of the corner of his eye, then pulls out of his park and takes off back towards the less affluent area of Greenwich where their motel is.  
  
Bill eats his drive-through lunch on his motel bed, waiting for the motorbike’s engine, for the knock on the door. But nobody arrives to unload stupid new hypothetical case details upon him. He can get on with his real job.  
  
So he picks up the motel’s phone with napkin-cleaned fingers. He dials out to the home of Pastor Bernard Perry, and his wife, Cynthia.  
  
There’s two rings, and the click of connection. “Cynthia Perry, how may I help you?” she greets, very properly. Her accent is Texan, maybe, somewhere South. And not washed out by whatever the interim of residency in Connecticut has been.  
  
“Sorry to bother you on the weekend, Mrs. Perry. I’m Special Agent Bill Tench, with the FBI. I’m in Greenwich, Connecticut, looking into the deaths of five children. On the same night as your son died--”  
  
“He’s not dead. He is in a soul sleep.”  
  
The comment is so bizarre Bill struggles for words. Seventh-Day Adventists, and hardline, for the homeschooling. “On that night, another boy was found to have arsenic poisoning.”  
  
“Okay.”  
  
Bill’s eyes are on the case file, distracted by the autopsy report. “Your son didn’t end up Greenwich Hospital, though. Or they might have checked him for arsenic poisoning, too.”  
  
“We took him to Glory of God Adventist Health.”  
  
“Oh.”  
  
“In New York. The paramedics said--” There’s a long silence on the phone line. “He was already asleep. We wanted someone we could trust to be respectful of our son. People of faith. ...he didn’t die of arsenic poisoning.”  
  
Stamford is close. This should probably be a home visit. In person is always better, to break news like this. He adds more regrets to the teetering pile. He can segue this into a house call, he tells himself. “Ma’am, I’m sorry to be dredging up the past like this, but arsenic poisoning can be mistaken for hepatitis, due to the liver inflammation. Your son died the same day as another confirmed poisoning case. If I can come and speak to you--”  
  
“You want me to let you dig him up? And cut him up?”  
  
He doesn’t know if this woman is properly delusional, or if this is just a regular old gap in civilian knowledge. There’s not going to be a whole lot to cut up after seven years. “...arsenic can be detected from hair samples, Ma’am. Absolutely non-intrusive,” he says.  
  
“...you’re with that other man, aren’t you? The young man who spoke to Bernard. The PI.”  
  
His unhappy silence must be an answer.  
  
“Leave us alone. You can’t give him back to me. We don’t want your help.” And the line clicks closed.  
  
Bill holds the dead receiver away from himself, stares at it. Grief is strange. It’s a phrase law enforcement could do with remembering, in Bill’s opinion. Too many times, police see families of deceased acting weird, and try to railroad them for crimes they didn’t commit. Each and every person manifests grief in distinct ways; Bill thinks tragedy often serves as a multiplier for character strengths and flaws, but, also, quirks. He’s seen people laugh at funerals, joke in interviews about murdered loved ones, lash out in bizarrely incriminating ways. And then, he’s found proof that those are the innocent mourners in all this.  
  
But, even for grief, Cynthia Perry’s reaction was _very_ strange.  
  
No shock, not really. No outrage, that someone may have hurt her son and got away with it. And then there’s the detail about the hospital. They drove a dead kid to New York? He hates that Holden Ford is exactly the person he wants to talk to about Zachariah Perry’s death. He has to settle for Holden’s casefiles, cracked open on the bed, making Bill feel guilty for casting aspersions on Holden’s investigative capabilities. They really are something. He’s met a handful of FBI agents who could have put this all together, and that’s with official resources available.  
  
Holden’s (incredibly thorough) attempt to seek out connection between Zachariah Perry and Jackson Bettle, the thirteen and fourteen year old, came up blank. Bill is rereading an interview with Jackson’s high school best friend, engrossed enough that the approaching footsteps startle him. They stop short of his door. There’s the jingle of a key, and then Bill hears the door to the adjoining room open and close.  
  
Even Holden’s politely hushed bike wouldn’t approach so silently. Bill looks through slatted blinds into the parking lot anyway. Cars, but no bike. He can hear Holden through the thin plasterboard walls, shuffling steps. He hears the toilet flushing. A running tap. Bill tries to read the same sentence again. More shifting furniture. The toilet flushes again. The tap runs again. _Jesus, Holden, what are you fucking doing?_  
  
Bill tosses his reading glasses beside the file, hauls himself upright and out of his room, slamming on Holden’s door with an open palm. He waits several seconds, tries again. “I can hear you in there,” he calls through the closed door. He realizes he’s exactly where Harry Ellis stood the night before. He tries not to think about that.  
  
The door finally cracks inwards. The blinds are pulled in Holden’s room, so the interior is fuzzy, red-tinted darkness, and the kid is standing mostly out of sight. “Oh. You’re here. I didn’t see your car,” Holden mutters, even though it’s only a few spaces from where Bill parked the night before.  
  
“Holden…?” Bill says, squinting out of the daylight and into the tomblike gloom. Holden’s face is wet. Bill smells sick. “Are you… _drunk?_ Jesus, it’s barely lunchtime and-- Holden?”  
  
Holden has lurched out of view, though the door isn’t closed.  
  
Bill shoves the door further in, steps into the dark motel room. Already, that acrid stench of vomit making him choke down sympathetic nausea. Holden is planted with both hands on the sideboard table, one clutching onto the faux wood trim. His back is to Bill, but the convulsions of are obvious. “I threw up, as soon as I--” Holden is saying, though his face is turned down.  
  
Bill grabs the young man’s shoulder and pulls him upright. Face-to-face. The smell is worse. “Holden, how much did drink?”  
  
And Holden retches, again, though he seems to control it. He’s shivering, though it can’t be the temperature. His eyes are bloodshot, wet with tears, and his nose too is running down over his upper lip. Bill realizes he can’t smell alcohol. “...I was wrong, Bill,” Holden whispers. Each syllable comes up raw. “The whole case, it’s-- it’s-- a mistake-- ...they don’t sell dimercaprol over the counter, but if you could tell them it was an accident and--”  
  
“Dimer-- _what_ ?”  
  
Holden opens his mouth to explain; instead, he retches again right onto the man supporting him. A thin splatter scores across Bill’s shirt. It reeks of stomach acid, but it’s red. Holden stares, and then seems to lose focus. He staggers as if his legs were cut out from under him. Bill catches him just as his eyes roll untethered in his skull.  
  
And then Holden is dead weight in his hands.


	4. Chapter 4

When people are dead, you hold them in a specific way, so they don’t seem dead. Bill sees it when people pick up corpses. Especially children’s corpses. He saw it during service plenty. Seen it at a few active crime scenes, too.  
  
Here it is: you cradle the back of the skull, so their head doesn’t loll back horrifyingly overextended. You tuck their limbs to your own chest, make yourself a cradle, somewhere safe where no more harm can befall them.  
  
But it’s always too late.  
  
It’s how he holds Holden Ford, on the way down to his car.

 

 

No ambulance. He’ll be faster. He walked to Greenwich Hospital trying to retrace Zachariah Perry’s steps, and Bill’s sense of direction is exceptional after endlessly navigating unfamiliar towns during road school. He drives over the limit, but well. He says Holden’s name a lot while he drives. Holden’s chin is on his chest and there’s bloody drool hanging from the corner of his mouth. Bill’s eyes return to the road. One missed turn. He course corrects.

He supports the back of Holden’s neck again as he carries him into the ER.

 

 

Someone is shaking a vending machine that hasn’t given them the correct change. A TV is showing an advertisement for a breakfast cereal. And a bearded, balding man in a lab coat is telling Bill that Holden is going to be okay. Well, he’s not saying that, but Bill is scarcely hearing the words. “--observe his vital functions. In acute poisoning cases, even non-lethal, his liver may have--”  
  
Bill tunes out again, but he nods along. Registers details detachedly. Dimercaprol was administered promptly. The vomited blood was a tear in the roof of Holden’s mouth, from putting his fingers down his own throat. Off the blood transfusion, onto fluids. Potassium, to protect from heart rate irregularities. Keeping “his friend” for observation at least overnight.  
  
The woman who needed her change has pulled a beleaguered nurse over to complain about a machine that is clearly not the hospital staff’s responsibility. Bill thinks about getting up and redressing this entitled bitch in front of the entire waiting room. And then he thinks, maybe she’s waiting on news about a loved one.  
  
The doctor clears his throat. “I understand you’ve contacted his family already to let them know about the hospitalization. Well, you can let them know he’s in recovery.” And then the man smiles, genuine.  
  
Bill tries to return it. _His family._ Bill had called Holden’s apartment, spoken to his drug-dealing roommate to get Em’s number, and Doctor Lizbon’s, both in Holden’s address book. He’s glad he didn’t have to call Nancy to get hold of his own home office rolodex. He can barely recall speaking to Nancy or Em. He hopes, hopes, he wasn’t too blunt with either of them. He somehow kept the local police out of this. His badge probably did the talking for him. He can’t much remember that either.  
  
“He’s asked for you,” the man informs him.  
  
Bill blinks with dazed surprise. For some reason, he figured Holden would still be unconscious. “I need to make some calls,” he tells the doctor. He struggles to make it out of the chair he’s been rigidly waiting in.  
  
“Room two sixty one,” the doctor says. “It’s good you got him to us when you did. He got the care he needed,” the man says. As if the man is trying to comfort him. _Do I look like I need comforting?_  
  
Bill sucks at his teeth and shakes his head. He heads to the payphone instead.

 

 

It’s at least fifteen minutes before he finds himself at Holden Ford’s hospital room. He doesn’t want to see Holden, but this bastard has the answers to his case. He must. Even the hospital is scaled up expensively, spacious single rooms, and even those under capacity. Holden’s room has a window, that looks onto an expanse of mowed down green and idly strolling patients and visitors in the afternoon sun. Bill steps inside without permission or acknowledgment, leans against the opposite wall. Holden barely moves. He’s sitting up, flushed around his eyes and nose, pale and bloodless everywhere else. He’s hooked up to a clear IV, in a pale green hospital gown. He’s already smoothed his hair down neatly.  
  
Holden clears a hoarse throat. “It was an accident.” There’s a despondent attentiveness, like Holden knows the conversation is crucial and yet cannot bring himself to care about the outcome. Holden Ford survived arsenic poisoning, and yet, he’s completely lifeless. “I’m sorry. I wouldn’t have brought you all the way out if I’d known.”  
  
Bill stalks to the door, closing it, and then advances upon the occupied hospital bed. His anger is coming up in ugly waves, like Holden's visceral purges. In the direction of the person who deserves it, though, not some vending machine. “An _accident_?" he hisses. "...Holden, you are one lie away from a padded cell. So think good and hard before you open your fucking mouth again.”  
  
“The ‘71 poisonings was accidental, Bill. That’s what I’m saying to you. I’m not trying to pretend I ingested arsenic by mistake. But I wasn’t trying to kill myself. I only ate two apples.”  
  
Bill leans close. “Which apples?”  
  
Holden sucks in a breath. Sounds painful. “The house with the high fence at that junction. The fence that looked as if it had been rebuilt in the last decade. After you set off, I walked the pond. The woodlands there was all tracked through-- there was some litter. Some of the trees had nails in them, makeshift ladders hammered into trunks. Old tree houses, I guess. Kids came that way, and I knew that they would have passed right by that apple tree.” Holden licks chapped, reddened lips. “I doubled back, I jumped the fence. It was a hunch.”  
  
Bill raises an eyebrow. Nothing more.  
  
Holden’s crooked fingers carve out neat lines in the air as he justifies himself. “Two poisonings, then nothing. Say, the fence was down for a couple of months as it was being rebuilt, and then it goes back up, so the poisoning cases stop too. The medical staff weren’t treating this like a poisoning at first, so nobody took samples of the regurgitated food. But, Georgia Lafont said she thought the vomit smelled fruity. Sorry, Henrietta’s mother. Well, she said it smelled like fruit and garlic, but the garlic scent is arsenic, right? So. Fruit. Like, an apple tree that was finally within reach.”  
  
“Let me get this straight. You had a hunch, so you ate two possibly poisoned apples? ...why _two_?”  
  
Holden frowns at the gridded roofing panel. “I ate one. Then she-- then I thought-- it wouldn’t suffice as an experiment.”  
  
“ _She_?”  
  
Holden monotones the next words without looking up. “Then a voice told me to eat another one. That the one apple wasn’t enough.”  
  
“...you’re still hearing voices.”  
  
Holden looks like he’s regretting his candour. “Not-- not regularly. At times of particular stress, or--”  
  
“You could tell me shit like this _before_ I fly out here on your fucking case. On your judgment.”  
  
“And, what? Give you need another reason to look down on me? Another reason to avoid seeing me?”  
  
“Don’t try to put your dishonesty on me.”  
  
“I’m sorry I’m schizophrenic, Bill, really. I’m sorry I’m the way that I am. I would like to be any other way. If I could opt out of hearing Eileen Ford’s voice telling me to--” Holden grimaces, laying his cheek down on his pillow. His eyes are wet and irritated, but that might just be the ingested arsenic. “I wasn’t trying to kill myself. It wasn’t as if I wanted to be _right._ But…”  
  
“ _But?_ ”  
  
Holden grits his teeth through his reply. “I really didn’t want to be wrong.”  
  
“So, you wanted to be right about your mysterious, malicious poisoner, or six feet under?”  
  
Holden is very slow to respond. He shuffles upright, winces and splays a hand over his abdomen through the hospital gown. “I--”  
  
Bill has already startled towards him, but he stops short of touching. Both his fists go to the railing of Holden’s hospital bed, and he leans forward on it like a nervous traveller on a disembarking ship. “Don’t answer that. ...once your doctor has time to sit down with me, we’re going to get you the professional help you _clearly_ need.”  
  
“‘The help I need’…? What does that-- wait, what did you tell the doctors?” Holden asks, bolting upright. Bill sees the green line of Holden’s heart rate monitor lurching into frantic peaks and troughs. “Did you tell them this was a suicide attempt?” the sickly young man demands.  
  
“No, I didn’t. Because I didn’t know what the hell you’d done, Holden.”  
  
Holden sags with relief.  
  
Bill continues, brusquely: “Now, I know that the voice of your dead mother told you to eat arsenic. So maybe, yeah, the doctor should be informed about pertinent--”  
  
“Bill!” Holden hisses, grabbing his arm tight enough to hurt.  
  
“Holden,” Bill says, sternly, trying to pull away. Holden has a surprisingly unbreakable grip on his joints of his wrist.  
  
“They’ll put me back into an insane asylum, don’t you get that?” The young man’s eyes are glassy, viscous. Like unset enamel paint. White all round the pupil. “Don’t you-- don’t you care about me at all?” Holden asks, voice catching.  
  
“Let go of my arm, Holden.”  
  
“ _Promise me_ you’re not going to tell them.”  
  
“If you’re hearing voices, Holden, the doctors need to know.”  
  
“My doctor knows. _My_ doctor. In New York. Can you try-- _try_ to have a little empathy for me? Please? Can you imagine the misery of your dosages being toyed with without your consent-- without-- they say, tell us about your symptoms, Holden, tell us everything, we want to help-- but they’re happy to medicate me catatonic if it gets me behaving like they want me to behave. Not everyone is Doctor Lizbon, okay? At Winnebago, they were always looking for an excuse to bump me up to three, four hundred milligrams of chlorpromazine a day, I wouldn’t be able to _think_ , let alone hallucinate. I would sit in a murky black pit and think not a single thought. Bill-- Bill, look at me, please-- I have optimized my medication--”  
  
“Holden, I need you to let go of my arm.”  
  
Holden does, sharply. “Bill, look at me.”  
  
Bill tracks his gaze to Holden, and looks at his temple instead of at those dangerously compelling eyes.  
  
Holden’s voice, when it comes, is ragged with stomach acid and arsenic damage. “It doesn’t happen often. I don’t have regularly occurring schizotypal delusions or thought patterns, and I certainly don’t hallucinate often. Sometimes, when I’m very anxious, very distressed. ...I couldn’t bear to think I’d dragged you out here for an accidental poisoning. You’d be disappointed in me. That thought was very distressing to me, Bill.”  
  
“I _am_ disappointed in you, Holden. I’m happy there’s not a poisoner on the loose, unlike you seem to be. Good news, you know, that there aren’t any more undiscovered cases. But that doesn’t change the fact that you--” he has the clarity of mind to lean in, drop his voice, “-- _the fact that you poisoned yourself_ ,” he hisses. “I find that pretty fucking disappointing. What was I supposed to do? If you died? If the last time I spoke to you was some stupid blow out--” Holden's fingers have settled back on him, and Bill wrenches his arm away. He paces at the foot of Holden’s hospital bed.  
  
Holden watches him forlornly. “Bill, I wasn’t expecting to land up in hospital--” he starts to say.  
  
“You know what the worst part of all this is? I was so fucking proud of you. For being _strong_. For going back to school. For your book deal, even if that autobiography is gonna be a pain in the ass for me to deal with professionally. When I read that case file you put together, I wanted to call you and tell you I’d trade Holden Ford and his brilliance and his work ethic for any one of the twenty empty suits I’ve gotta brush shoulders with at the Bureau. Shit, I’d trade one Holden Ford for all twenty of them.” Bill’s palm travels down his face. He can hear the emotion creeping into his voice. The exhaustion. “...Jesus, Holden, I was so proud of you.”  
  
“I’m sorry for not telepathically figuring that out, Bill,” Holden mutters petulantly, not looking up.  
  
“I called you more often than I call my own mother, Holden.”  
  
“Well that just makes you a shitty son.” Holden winces, then closes his eyes and drops back onto a thin hospital pillow. “...I don’t mean that. I-- Bill, I don’t _want_ you to be proud of me.”  
  
“Good news on that front then, Holden, because I sure as shit am not proud of you after the way you’ve handled--”  
  
Holden interrupts. “I want you around. Not some distant, benevolent authority keeping tabs on my deinstitutionalization process.”  
  
“Really? The ten dollar words, even as you recover from acute arsenic poisoning?”  
  
Holden’s eyes narrow. “I want you to want to see me. Is that monosyllabic enough?”  
  
“I have someone, Holden, who I _see_. Her name is Nancy Tench. And she’s a damn good woman, and a damn good mother. To my son, Holden, my little boy who is back in Virginia waiting for his father to come back from _yet another_ work trip. And I might not deserve the family I have, but you know what? I’m going to try to do right by them. Even after mistakes have been made, I’m not going to use one failing to set precedent for the next. I’m not gonna spiral. You might not give a damn about hurting the families of the men you-- but-- I sure as hell care about them.”  
  
“More than you care about me.”  
  
“Of course _more_. They’re my family. Who are you, Holden?”  
  
Holden glares at the roof as he shrugs.  
  
“This isn’t about wanting. I don’t come out here to the luxury and the privilege of this overpriced town, and not want for things, Holden. But I’m not here, annexing mansions and hijacking convertibles, am I? Because I am in control of myself. I’m not some criminal. Or some deviant--”  
  
Holden scoffs at the term.  
  
“Laugh all you want, boy, but if you go through life living by your own selfish whims, you’re gonna end up making mistakes, and using that despair to justify more mistakes, and you’ll end up self-destructing in ways that even your friends can’t fix. You _will_ spiral. You’ll end up somewhere dark and lonely. Maybe the wrong side of the law, again. Maybe just dead.”  
  
“I was never on the wrong side of the law--” Holden starts to protest.  
  
“Holden, listen to me. Integrating into society is about accepting the reality of your situation. I am integrated. I have accepted my marriage vows, my professional responsibilities, my family situation, hell, the laws of this country regarding homosexuality,” Bill says quieter, leaning close. “And maybe, every so often, I’ll slip up. Do things that I want, that are wrong for me to want. But you see, I have accepted the reality of my situation. To my core, I have accepted it. And you need to do the same.”  
  
“Accept the reality of my situation? Bill, I’m schizophrenic. Reality and I are not bosom buddies,” Holden deadpans.  
  
“I’m not talking about schizophrenia. I’m talking about not getting yourself set on some career you can’t have. Getting set on some married man.”  
  
“I’m not--” Holden trails off. He sags. “You should go wrap this thing up, though, I don’t think you need to rush. Would have to be a real moron to climb a seven foot fence to eat poisoned apples,” he jokes weakly. He wipes his nose, loudly, not meeting Bill’s eyes. “Still. The home-owners.”  
  
Bill nods, but he pauses on his path out of the room. He drums on the doorframe with his knuckle, an off-kilter beat. “I called Em--”  
  
Holden’s face contorts to a grimace.  
  
“--and Kathy,” Bill adds.  
  
“Wait, what?” Holden asks as he bolts upright, alarm entering his voice. “You called Kathy? Why did you do that?”  
  
“Because you’d just thrown up on me and then passed out in my arms looking like a corpse, Holden, and I wasn’t sure you were gonna make it. So, yeah, I called Em, and I called Katherine Lizbon. She’s gonna fly down, I think.”  
  
Holden groans softly, curling onto one side. “She can’t see me like this again, Bill. You have to tell her--”  
  
“I don’t have to do anything for you, Holden. Not after the stunt you pulled today. Em’s already on her way up. I couldn’t contact her with an update, so she’s probably expecting to find you dead. She’s borrowing a friend’s car and--”  
  
“ _What?_ Which friend of Em’s has a car?”  
  
“ _I didn’t ask_ , Holden,” Bill growls. He breathes through his nose, steps back towards the bed and lower his voice to a barely audible growl. “I held off the local boys, but there are gonna be questions. ...if I were you, I’d tell anyone who asks that this was an accidental ingestion. That you were working with samples of arsenic compounds, for your investigation, that you didn’t clean your hands before you ate lunch. Better to be thought of as a careless idiot, than a lunatic with a death wish.”  
  
Holden face becomes mapped tension. His jaw is working long before he speaks. “Lie to law enforcement?”  
  
“Well, shit _,_ Holden, I didn’t realize that was going to be a problem for you all of a sudden,” Bill says bitingly. It’s only once he’s out of the room, in the privacy of an elevator, that he regrets being so harsh.  
  
He’s so darkly distracted that he almost doesn’t recognize the woman passing him through the front door. She’s in acid-washed denim overalls and a multi-studded jacket, also denim, but a dark wash. Her hair has grown out, teased into a scruffy halo. The same dark black eye make-up, the same frighteningly intense stare. Before he can even greet her, Em reaches for him. Her fingers are tight on his arm, chipped black polish and shredded cuticles, grappling him still. And then, just as fast, her hand is gone. Em’s evaluation cuts far deeper than surface recognition.  
  
“Why did he do it?” she asks him. She sounds furious, and Bill wonders if Holden informed her about-- Bill can’t even name the set of actions the two of them performed out last night, not even in his own head. Bill realizes he can’t answer. She doesn’t wait, steps past him in a clumping of combat boots. Bill trails along behind as she heads towards the elevator.  
  
“He’s awake,” Bill says. He means, ‘you could ask him yourself’. But it sounds like an excuse, on his behalf, or Holden’s, he’s not sure.  
  
Em wipes her nose on the sleeve of her jacket. “Room number. I know, you told me, but I’ve forgotten,” Em says, over fast. Her eyes are wet. “I was at work when you called. I was distracted. I need the room number, Bill.”  
  
“Right, and you’re working at-- what is it, a recording studio? That’s great, Em, you--”  
  
“ _Bill._ Room number,” she says, jabbing the elevator buttons.  
  
The doors are already closing as he replies. “Second floor. Two sixty one--” Bill says unsurely, to a disappearing sliver of young woman.  
  
There’s a spray-painted tour van in the parking lot. Bill smiles at Em's ride for half a second, and then stops smiling. His own car is parked badly; he’d had to come back out and move it from where it had been blocking the ER entrance, once Holden was with the medical staff. The passenger side window has an ugly smear where Holden’s open mouth had rested against glass. Bill doesn’t examine the mark closely.

 

  
  
He showers at the motel. Unfolds a clean shirt, doesn't bother ironing out the suitcase creasing. His hands twitch and tremble as he buttons it up. He pulls his tie too tight. He has to loosen it to get breath down.

 

 

It’s easy enough to retrace steps and make it to the whitewashed fence that he’d shoved Holden into. When the sun was overhead, and not dwindling in some horizon tangle of New England treetops. Bill parks the car on the road, watching the apple tree like a suspect primed to flee. It’s an old tree, squat, laden branches spreads out like a toxic mushroom cloud, yet never quite in reach of the high fence. There must be three, four dozen apples on the single tree. They are clustered heavy and shiny amongst dark green leaves. Holden jumping the fence to pluck off fruit suddenly doesn’t seem so entirely crazy, not faced with that edenic temptation. The ripened swell of jewel red seems irresistible.  
  
But Bill’s just got done lecturing Holden about facing up to reality. And the reality is that he’s eying off a toxic hazard.  
  
He walks around the other side of the large, fenced in grounds, and through a latched gate in the high fence. There aren’t many fences in Greenwich, and now that he’s closer to the house, there are other discrepancies between this manor and the surrounding suburb. It’s older than most of the houses, for one. The lawn isn’t mowed, instead is clumpy loose tufts of grass that Bill’s shoes bend into preserved evidence. The ivy climbs unrestrained over the old brickwork. Though the garden is clearly cared for by a hobbyist, it is stark contrast to the modern, professionally shaped landscaping that’s the norm for the neighbourhood. And then there’s the little clues of disrepair: faded tiles, cracked paint on the awnings and window frames. Most of the windows are dark, and the lacy white curtains are all pulled over the limited illumination. Further protecting this relic from the reality of its era.  
  
Bill knocks. And waits.  
  
Another light comes on. The door is pulled inwards, a tiny glimpse of traditional decor. Like some historic open house, but this house is anything but open. Even the door is barely cracked. The woman holding the heavy wood is shrunken with age, crinkled up inside a large cream cardigan. Strangely, a full face of cosmetics, hair in curls like a still boxed-up doll. Bill’s no mondain himself, but he can tell she is as outdated as her home. “How can I help you?” the woman asks, less than friendly, peering behind him into the illusive evening hues.  
  
“I was hoping to speak with the homeowners,” Bill says, reaching for his badge instinctively.  
  
She studies Bill’s credentials without comment. Then, her wily attention turns to the man holding the badge. She spends too long looking at his tie. Not a trace of anxiety that he’s bringing bad news. No family, then. “I'm the homeowner.”  
  
“Bill Tench. I’m with the Federal Bureau of Investigation,” he says, which she should have read anyway.  
  
“Marianne Bourne,” she informs him, with no additional niceties.  
  
“And that’s your apple tree, Ms. Bourne?” Bill asks, gesturing backwards to the corner of the property.  
  
“The seeds that grew that tree came all the way from the San Joaquin Valley, California. Winesap, but my daddy’s special cultivar. Red skin. White flesh. A thing of heritage.”  
  
“Ma’am, I need you to--”  
  
“I can’t stand the taste of apples, myself. Too many as a kid. But the starlings love it, and so do the fruit flies and the apple maggots. And, once the fruit falls, the rats like them too,” she interrupts self-importantly, folding her arms. “Why are you interested in my father’s apple tree?"  
  
_There are six dead children because of that tree. If I had a chainsaw on hand, I’d take it to the ground here and now._ “And the fence, you re-built that fence in ‘71?”  
  
She stares harder. The lenses are milked unhealthily. “If you say so, sir.”  
  
Bill puts his badge back. “No, you tell me. When did you rebuild that fence last, Ma’am?”  
  
“I don’t precisely know. 1971, that’s… seven years ago now. That might be right,” she says, tight-lipped and suspicious. Still, not a trace of nervousness. No guilt.  
  
_Holden, you smart, stupid, son of a bitch._ “Ma’am, I need you to show me whatever you’ve been spraying the apples with.”  
  
Ms. Bourne stares obstinately up, but then steps impolitely past Bill and into her own garden. She heads around the facade, towards what must have once been stables. She pulls an unlocked, stiff wooden door in with an age-flecked hand, doesn’t wait for Bill as she steps inside, flicking on lights. Not even a misting system. Just a dime store plastic spray bottle. There’s a face mask, though Bill’s fairly confident this woman is seeped with chronic arsenic poisoning regardless.  
  
“And you spray it, what? Every other day?” Bill asks, holding his jacket up to his face as he squats down. The huge jar is very old, white ceramic, a label faded beyond any legibility, though it’s been rewritten in pen. It looks as if it’s for commercial use, which he supposes, is why the supply is still going strong.  
  
“Every three days. Only when the fruit is ripening. Otherwise, on the first of the month. Keep the tree looking pretty. Like he’d have wanted,” she says.  
  
He takes in this old woman, underneath the teetering shelf of ancient gardening tools and stacked boxes equally pastelized with age, warped and dusty. “Cucumber dust?” Bill reads under his breath, settling back on his haunches. The monicker sounds familiar, and must have been in Holden’s toxicology write-up. Which means it’s arsenic. He knew that anyway from Holden’s bloodwork.  
  
“DDT. Takes care of cucumber beetles. And it sure wipes out those apple maggots.”  
  
“And children,” Bill tells her, and then regrets it. “This is not DDT. No, no, don’t go near it,” he says, as she bends closer towards the jar. “This is concentrated, inorganic arsenic. Where-- where did this come from?”  
  
Her nearly hairless, drawn in eyebrow raises imperiously. “I believe it came out from California with my father.”  
  
Bill inhales deeply, then remembers what he’s standing near, and stops breathing. She’s stepping towards the jar, and he blocks the way. “Don’t touch anything in here. I need to use your phone.”  
  
“Don’t be ridiculous, I can touch the things in my own garden shed. It’s just pesticide. I’m in perfectly fine health, and I’ve been using it on that there tree for thirty odd years without any problems--”  
  
“Did you not hear me, lady? It’s _poison_ . Your fruit tree killed six kids,” Bill catches himself snapping. He stands up, almost hitting the hanging lightbulb.  
  
“I didn’t--” She’s lost for words. The thin, creased lips twitch with withheld emotion. “I didn’t mean to-- I didn’t give those fruit to anyone.”  
  
Bill looks out the door of the open shed.  
  
He uses her ancient phone to call over the local PD. He sits with her, technically, though he’s not looking her way. She cries, then stops crying soon after, settling defensively at her full yet insignificant height. Bill sits waiting amongst untouched post-war decor, with plenty of old family portraits and no new ones. Local law enforcement will get in contact with poison control, and Bill can go back to Quantico and away from a case that doesn’t merit any federal involvement.  
  
He doubts there will be criminal charges coming down on this woman. Civil suits. Harry Ellis strikes him as litigious. But Bill Tench doesn’t feel vindicated, or guilty about whatever he’s bringing her way. Bill is detached from everything. He feels as if he’s spent a year of his life in Greenwich, and he’s grown bored of it.  
  
When the police show up in the blushing dusk, Bill walks them out to the apple tree. The apples don’t look so tempting once they’re caught by police torches. Then, to the shed, and to the pot of concentrated poison. Bill makes his excuses, walks back to his hire car, lays his head against the wheel for several minutes. He thinks about the Ellises, and the five other families mourning a perfectly avoidable tragedy. Then, he brings himself to start the car.

 

 

He stops at a payphone and dials out to the family he’s been avoiding thinking about. His own.  
  
“Tench household,” comes his wife’s voice. He thinks he hears a radio, maybe the TV. Nancy doesn’t watch TV so much when he’s home. Maybe she's lonely.  
  
Bill can’t speak.  
  
“...Bill?” Nancy asks, as if somehow she knows.  
  
“Hey, Nance. Sure is good to hear your voice,” Bill murmurs.  
  
“You didn’t call,” she reproaches. “Last night.”  
  
“Things got away from me. ...how’s Brian?” Bill asks, maybe too quick.  
  
“Same as you left him, Bill. Is everything okay there? You sound…” she pauses. “If things aren’t okay there, I want to hear it from you right now.”  
  
Bill winces, knowing at once that she’s referring to the shootout in Madison, and how much he’d downplayed the incident in the immediate aftermath. Had to come clean on that, with Holden’s book bearing down on him. Hadn’t been a pretty conversation. “It’s not,” Bill reassures. “This whole thing is a mess but it’s-- it’s an accident. I shouldn’t have come out here. I should be at home with you,” he says, voice scraping. Every word that isn’t the truth saps his energy. Lying to Nancy hurts, and it should hurt. Bill deserves to hurt a lot worse than this.  
  
“...you’re gonna move up your flight then? If it’s all done?” Nancy asks, trying to inject some optimism.  
  
“Yeah. Yeah, I’ll be home--” Bill glares at the roof of the phone booth. He’s seeing Holden Ford in that hospital bed, no matter where he looks. But he's not the person to see Holden through recovery. He never was. “--I’ll be home soon. You give my love to Brian.”  
  
“You’ll be home soon. Give it to him yourself,” Nancy murmurs warmly. “Love you.”  
  
“Love you so much,” Bill mutters, eyes screwed closed.  
  
She doesn’t hang up, and neither does he. Listens to her breathing for precious seconds, listens to what he’s now certain is the television set, playing a musical movie he’d never be able to pick even if he could hear it word-for-word.  
  
His connection home dwindles to electronic droning. Bill settles the phone back tender and precise, like a baby to cradle.

 

  
  
He drives the rest of the way to Greenwich Hospital in the dark.  
  
The badge comes out, and he makes it in after visiting hours. He's not the only one. There's a light on in Holden's room, and the curtains are drawn about the bed to keep out illumination. But it’s not Em sitting under a lamp, writing on papers in her lap.  
  
“Bill,” Katherine Lizbon greets him, quietly, calmly. What he’d thought was medical forms is actually a crossword. She’s looking up at him, cautious, pen poised. Maybe she's been crying. Bill can't tell. She must have told them she was Holden's mother, to be in here at this time of night. "He's sleeping."  
  
He looks towards the screened off bed, nods along. Keeps his voice very soft. Better he doesn't have to speak to Holden right now. “...any updates?"  
  
Kathy reaches for the table again. Holden's chart. She doesn't read from it, just holds on. "The dimercaprol was administered quickly after consumption. We'll need longitudinal blood-work to establish if there's any undiagnosed organ damage. His liver, in particular. It's good that Holden isn't a drinker."  
  
Bill isn't entirely sure that's true, any more. "Does he have insurance?" Bill asks, rubbing his eyes.  
  
"Yes. I insisted. It was expensive, with his history what it is, but--" She seems to consider her point proven. "And he drives a motorbike now," she adds, disapprovingly.  
  
"So. Holden told you what he did?” Bill asks, unable to keep the surprise out of his tone.  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“...and? Forgive me for saying so, but you seem pretty calm.”  
  
She puts down the pen and the newspaper onto a tabletop, and neatens them. “Bill, do you know how many times I’ve seen Holden in a hospital bed he put himself into?”  
  
He doesn’t want to think about that. Bill loosens his tie even further.  
  
“He told me he didn’t want to die. That’s a lot better than the bedside exchanges we used to have. When he was in Dodge-- he used to ask me for help. Help ending his own life.” She says it so clinically that Bill could mistake this for uncaring evaluation. “Holden wasn’t trying to kill himself, Bill.”  
  
“Yeah, well, arsenic doesn’t typically defer to preference on its lethality.”  
  
Doctor Lizbon folds her arms, though he doesn’t detect real annoyance. “Bill, you’re not talking to Holden. There’s no need to be flippant.”  
  
Bill sighs, and slopes over to the other chair. He drops himself into it, a poorly sewn sack of worries. “Sorry, Kathy." She doesn't reply, so Bill continues: "...I-- I think I handled Holden Ford wrong. Encouraging him into a high stress career like this. Indulging him, involving him. I think my guidance put him into-- well, not into a hospital bed, but into a situation he wasn’t equipped to handle--”  
  
“Bill, Holden needs his projects. You have his best interests at heart. I know that.”  
  
She’s entirely incorrect, uninformed, over-trusting. Bill Tench has screwed with Holden's head as much anyone. Bill doesn't for one second believe Holden's blasé assessment of their night together. Still, some lies are nice to hear. And it sure was nice to hear he was the best man Holden had ever met. “Do you think he needs-- needs to be back in a controlled environment?”  
  
Lizbon's eyebrow raises. She shakes her head firmly. “He needs to go home. The case is sewn up, he said?”  
  
“Yeah. Guess he's told you all about it?"  
  
"You know Holden. _All_ about it," she whispers.  
  
"I know Holden," Bill murmurs unhappily. "..it was pesticide on an apple tree. The fence was down back in ‘71. She doesn’t eat apples, but she-- she didn’t like vermin on the tree her father planted. She was using it to kill the birds and the rats and the bugs. She thought it was DDT? You'd think, if she saw it killing rats and birds, she might have-- well-- I saw the garden sprayer she was using. The fruit was drenched in calcium arsenate,” Bill mutters. He staves off a yawn. He should be back at his motel. No, he should be back in Virginia. "A horrible accident. But, an accident."  
  
But Katherine Lizbon is squinting right at him. “Ripe apples don’t stay on the tree for two months, Bill.”  
  
Bill blinks with surprise. “No. Of course they don’t.”  
  
“So she used it on something else in the garden?” Lizbon asks. “Fall produce? The kids who were poisoned two months later might have eaten--” she trails off, because Bill is shaking his head.  
  
“She treated the tree because she didn't eat the fruit. So, no, I don't think she used it on anything else in the garden,” Bill says slowly and with great concentration. He stands up to leave, doesn’t make it out of his chair; Kathy’s hand settles on his arm.  
  
“Bill. You need to sleep. You look--”  
  
“Some mushrooms uptake inorganic arsenic. Apples fall, rot, arsenic soaks into the soil. ...they might have been trying to harvest psychedelics,” comes Holden’s calm contribution from behind the closed plasticized curtains.  
  
Bill does stand now. He shoves the curtains apart. Holden Ford is sat up, expression curiously blank. He looks far healthier already, though there’s still tubes running into his arms. “Kinda reaching, no? ...you do think Zachariah died of arsenic poisoning.”  
  
“His route to town went right by that tree. This can’t be a coincidence. ...rice can also uptake arsenic from the soil, it replaces the silicon molecule within--”  
  
“Did you see any psychedelic mushrooms growing around the apple tree, Holden? Any _rice_ ?”  
  
Holden shrugs. His mouth is pursed with thought, and his eyes flit around the high crevices of the hospital’s roof. Bill wonders how much of the conversation he was awake for.  
  
Bill grits his teeth, but he can’t resist the possibility of Holden’s insight. “...I spoke to Zachariah’s mother. I found our conversation troubling.”  
  
“I’ve already spoken with his father,” Holden says, one eyebrow slightly raised. Somehow still manages to sound entitled. “Bernie Perry. That’s in my notes. Why did you call?”  
  
“I don’t have to run every little thing I do by you, Holden. I’m a federal officer. And this was a phone call, not LD50-ing myself with arsenic. So more of a minor investigative decision,” Bill says snidely. “Bernard Perry is a pastor who made it to national television. Safe to say, he’s good with words. Coulda been bullshitting you.”  
  
Holden stews on that. But, he must have some faith in Bill’s instincts. He nods.  
  
Bill elaborates, anyway. Can't help but want to convince Holden. “She wasn’t interested in hearing her son might have been murdered. Told me to butt the hell out of her son’s death, a little more politely. And, you know, the kid didn’t end up here in Greenwich Hospital.”  
  
“They wanted an Adventist hospital. A less invasive autopsy, I understand,” Holden says, though his expression has grown thoughtful.  
  
“Or a less thorough autopsy,” Bill says, fingers still on the opaque blue plastic sheeting. “In New York. So, a whole other jurisdiction, nobody with potential arsenic poisoning on their minds. A death that slips through the cracks as hepatitis, because hey, arsenic poisonings do that. Doesn’t that strike you as awfully convenient?”  
  
There’s a graceful acuity to Holden’s eyes now. His fingertips are tapping away on the rail of his hospital bed. “You got the condensed information. If you go to my apartment, there’s a whole file on the Perry family. I’ve got a filing cabinet in my bedroom.”  
  
_Of course you do._  
  
“My keys are in-- uh-- probably in my jacket pocket?” Holden adds, but he stops staring into space. The enthusiasm is smothered down. “Get the files. Figure out what they’re hiding, Bill. If you go tomorrow morning, my roommate will probably be asleep, you can let yourself into the apartment. ...Kathy was right. You need to sleep, Bill. I’m sorry for what I’ve put you through today.”  
  
“Tell that to your fucking liver, Holden,” Bill says, and cuts off any reply by pulling closed the hospital curtains.


	5. Chapter 5

Bill stews on Holden Ford’s self-care advice long after he’s said goodbye to Doctor Lizbon, and left the hospital.  
  
A flash of FBI gold has him in the room adjoining his own. He politely thanks the older woman on the night shift at the front desk, though his face falls the moment he turns away from her. He stomps into Holden’s dark room, closes the door, and only then turns the overhead light on. Hasn’t been cleaned; the motel room reeks of vomit, and Holden’s possessions are all still on the floor where he must have carelessly discarded them in the throes of arsenic poisoning. Bill grabs Holden’s stupid fucking moto jacket, gets the keys out of a zipped pocket. He recognizes the Statue of Liberty keychain. He wonders if it means anything to Holden, or if it was just the first keyring he saw when he stepped into some New York bodega after getting his apartment key.  
  
He’s still holding the leather jacket, and he genuinely considers stuffing the thing into the trash can until he remembers it was a present from Em. That changes things. He searches out a wallet, finds Holden’s address on his motorbike license, which saves Bill a phone call he didn’t want to make to Holden, or home to Nancy for the address from his own correspondence with the kid. Then Bill locks the door to the stinking, stale room where Holden Ford could have died, and steps out purposefully into the heavy summer night.

He crosses the sleepy parking lot, dreamily aglow with a red vacancy sign. There’s no exhaust fumes, no grating motors. Bill thinks it might be the quietest motel he’s ever stayed at-- but the quiet isn’t welcome right now. It’s giving him too much time to think. He wants to act. Holden Ford isn’t the only person who can ruthlessly pursue revelations about this goddamned case.  
  
He comes into himself with that key turned in the ignition, ready to drive to New York in the middle of the night to spite Holden Ford’s concern. Bill has a cold, bubbling laugh caught in his throat, but it doesn’t escape through his tight lips. Not until he’s marched himself back to his motel room and sagged fully clothed into the bed. There, body aching through the mattress, heavier than lead, he laughs. It’s not happy.  
  
But it is a relief to sleep, alone.

 

  
  
Bill is dragged inchmeal alongside commuters, during the early morning rush into New York City. It’s a bustling, ugly summer’s day by the time he’s in the East Village, struggling to find a parking space near Holden’s apartment. The streets are lined with bright red and black billboards attempting to drag foolish college kids into tasteless clubs. A plaster-facade of a movie theater, advertising ‘The Wiz’ on two large signs. Bill pulls to the curb just in time to see a man pass in a full three-piece red suit with oversized lapels. A club owner, maybe. A pimp. Not a businessman, not wearing that. Bill closes the car door and stares up at what must be Holden’s apartment building: a towering structure with rusted fire escapes and a neon sign advertising ‘St. Mark’s Liquor Store’ by the front entrance.  
  
Bill doesn’t need a key to get up, it’s not that sort of building. Mercifully, the elevator is functional. He finds Holden’s apartment on the tenth floor, considers knocking and decides he’d much rather not see Holden’s drug-dealing roommate. He figures Holden’s room will be the one without any punk rock artistry emblazoned upon the door.  
  
The apartment reeks of marijuana as soon as Bill unlocks the front door. The poster in the entrance reads ‘The Cramps’ in a tacky, horror movie font. Frankenstein’s monster is dancing with a strange skull-headed lady in black. Beneath it, details about a gig. There’s a haphazard pile of heavy black leather boots in varying states of disrepair by the front door. If the key hadn’t just worked, Bill would think he’d got the wrong apartment. He stifles a sigh, and steps on inside.  
  
“Hello?” comes a voice. A man (Holden’s roommate, Bill assumes) is confrontationally blocking the hallway. He’s drug-use thin, with knotted muscles, long curled hair, slightly bloodshot blue eyes. He wears a tatty silk kimono in shades of green over red boxer shorts.  
  
Bill’s attention is drawn, immediately, to the nose piercing. _A real wannabe rockstar. Deals drugs because his records never sell, if they get pressed at all._ Bill already has him all worked out in one glance, but he stares the man down anyway. _...Holden better not have sunk this fucking low._  
  
“Who the fuck are you? You got a fucking warrant?” drawls the barely-dressed blond without even a flinch of fear.  
  
“I’ve got a fucking house key,” Bill says grouchily, dangling the keyring on his finger. “Bill. We spoke on the phone. I’m picking up Holden’s files,” he explains, already walking away from the attempt at confrontation.  
  
“Oh,” the man says, anger gone. “Yeah, man. You wanted Em’s number. You kinda look like police, is all,” the man says, head tilted as Bill passes by his door. Bill can hear him following along deeper into the apartment. “Holden’s room is on the left. White door. ...wait, are you that FBI agent? From Holden’s book?”  
  
Bill freezes, fingers squeezing sharply on the door handle. He feels entirely unpleasantly known by this stranger. He supposes this is the experience he should be getting accustomed to, once Holden’s book makes it to press. He finds himself, unkindly, hoping the book sells terribly. “I’m FBI, yes,” he says, drawing himself up as he turns about, not entirely answering the question.  
  
But the man seems delighted. “Bill ...Tench, right? Right on. That interrogation strategy was _fucking awesome_ \-- I mean, I hate cops, and I thought that shit was awesome--”  
  
Bill finds himself wondering what exactly went down in Holden’s fictionalized account of the Creighton interrogation. “If you don’t mind, I’m in the middle of something, son.”  
  
“Sure, man,” the man says. Staring up as if Bill is Robert Plant, or Mick Jagger, or whoever the fuck these kids are idolizing these days. “How’s Holden? I spoke to Em yesterday. She said he was gonna be okay?”  
  
“If Em says so,” Bill says unhelpfully. He opens the door and shuts it pointedly behind him.  
  
Holden’s bedroom is such a relief from the DIY gig posters and the stubbed out reefers in discoloured glassware and the pervasive grimy scent of city that Bill takes several seconds to register how depressing it is. About the dimensions and the decor of a shoebox that one might nurse a sick kitten in. Well, Bill allows, there’s a bed. A bookshelf stacked with what appear to be dense criminal psychology texts. A work desk, complete with chalkboard and street map, though everything is impeccably hygienic compared to the photos of Holden’s investigative set-up when he was a sick shut-in trying to solve the Madison case singlehandedly. Bill runs a fingertip over the blue plastic tack on the map representing the Ellis house on Pheasant Lane. He turns, to the hefty metal filing cabinet, thumbing through Holden’s keychain until he can get the draw marked ‘Greenwich Case’ unlocked.  
  
“Coffee?” comes a voice in the doorway, and Bill has to keep himself from startling.  
  
He smothers frustration as he turns. “Listen, uh--” Bill trails off, realizing that he spoke to this man yesterday afternoon, and couldn’t for the life of him remember the name.  
  
“Xander,” says the man, scratching a gold-stubbled cheek. “Pleasure. Sorry I was in such a state when you came in. Late night.”  
  
“Right. _Xander._ Would you mind giving me--” he stops himself, and decides rudeness might actually take more time. “Sure. A coffee would be great.”  
  
“One coffee coming up, Special Agent Tench,” the apparently irresolute anti-establishment punk calls over his shoulder, already backing up. The door remains wide open, and Xander continues to yell through the apartment’s paper thin walls: “So how did you plan out the interrogation strategy--”  
  
Bill slumps down against the filing cabinet, forehead to Holden’s incomprehensible filing system. He tries to keep his groan silent.

 

  
  
Bill errs on the side of comprehensiveness, which means that Xander helps him carry the entire contents of Holden’s ‘Greenwich Case’ drawer down to Bill’s car.  
  
Xander has not dressed any more, and seems completely unphased to be wearing little more than a silk robe on the busy sidewalk. Bill thanks him gruffly, and is getting in his car to drive off when the man doubles back to catch his attention.  
  
“Hey,” the scruffy young man calls across, over the humdrum of downtown traffic. “Tell Holden that Harry called last night.”  
  
Bill feels his stomach clench in on itself. “Did Mr. Ellis say what it was regarding?”  
  
The man laughs sheepishly. “I think he just wanted Holden to call him? I … uh… I was pretty stoned.”  
  
Bill tenses, but there is no reaction whatsoever from the man blurting about drug use to a federal agent. With a somewhat ironic peace sign, Xander retreats back into the shadowed, red-bricked ubiquity of East Fifth Street.

 

 

The commuters are long gone from Bill’s route back to Greenwich. The highway is a desolate blank slate with Bill’s hire car winding past turn-offs and the occasional long-haul truck. In that halcyon grey daylight, there’s time and space for thought. Bill thinks: maybe Zachariah was the real target, and the other poisonings were engineered. Maybe there’s another death that’s been missed, that ties all the chaos together. Maybe Ms. Bourne is connected, somehow. He never asked her which church she attends, whether she knew any of the children.  
  
And then he’s pulling off the I-95 towards Greenwich. Away from concrete and grime and car fumes, and into residential paradise.  
  
He has to do two trips to get all of Holden’s files up to his motel room, without any assistance from an enthusiastic stoner. He should have consolidated the research instead of lugging around these towering stacks of documentation, maybe. He settles them all on his motel bed, fetches his reading glasses.  
  
He’s beginning to figure out Holden’s filing system: subject, chronology, maybe an alphabetical component? All of the deaths (including a couple of possible misdiagnoses) are clustered together. He removes the ‘Zachariah Perry’ file, possibly thicker than the entire case file Holden faxed to him. He thumbs through the contents: a sketched out family tree and personal history, a timeline of the day of his death with the highlighted section representing his mother’s trip out to a church group when Zachariah was left alone. Details about Bernard Perry’s television contract and air dates. A transcript of Holden’s call with the pastor. There’s the school photo Bill saw, but also printed photos of mother, father, and brother. Bill pulls out a photocopied interview with Pastor Bernie Perry for a Christian lifestyle magazine, including what looks to be a staged family photograph.  
  
Bernie Perry is bearded, television handsome. His wife, unobtrusively pretty. Neither looks the sort to commit filicide, but Bill isn't sure what precisely that would physically manifest as. Their two sons sit side by side on the couch, in front of their parents. Zachariah is only three years younger, according to Holden’s notes, but he looks a child next to his teenage brother. His hair is short, neater than even Holden’s. His brother is lanky, facial features stretched and warped with puberty. Despite the graininess of the reproduced image, Bill can read unhappiness at involvement in this posed publicity shot.  
  
The article mostly concerns the family’s vegetarian diet, and Christmas celebrations, though Holden has circled a reference to home-schooling.  
  
‘The Perry family has achieved academic metrics that far exceed the capabilities of the secular school system,’ the article claims.  
  
Bill looks at the nearly-frowning older teenager, and then back to Holden’s notes. _Paul Perry._ The right age for violent behaviour to manifest, is what Wendy would say, or Holden channeling Doctor Wendy Carr. ...it would explain the parent’s cover-up, if one son was dead, the other facing down a lengthy prison sentence. Bill has nothing but heuristics to assign guilt to Zachariah’s brother. At least it’s a narrative that explains some of the otherwise incomprehensible details.  
  
There’s no contact for Paul Perry, a name that Bill considers rather unfortunately murderous. There’s a clearer photo of the teenager, another publicity shot. Holden has listed his DOB, which puts him at twenty-three years old in ‘78. There’s question marks by the address and contact number. He can read Holden’s frustration in the repetitive scrawl of punctuation.  
  
The actual notes on Paul Perry are equally limited:  
  
_‘Homeschooled after third grade. No criminal record. Out of state. At college?_  
  
_Not living at home. Not on speaking terms with parents.’_  
  
Holden’s files are, on the whole, very thorough research (some of which Bill is dubious about the legal providence of), but it’s the investigation of a civilian.  
  
And Bill is a federal agent.  
  
He pulls the motel phone over and calls Quantico; specifically, an old friend in who mostly dealt with AWOL cases and draft dodging. Contacts in the IRS, the USPS, and some student financial aid agencies, one of which ought to have a lead on the current whereabouts Paul Perry.

He leaves his motel room, returns with coffee and a dense beef and cheese burrito that Nancy wouldn’t approve of. The late afternoon has his motel room unbearably warm, so he loses the suit jacket and tie, cracks open every small window. He hasn’t called the airline to move his flight from tomorrow; he doesn’t intend to, but regardless, Nancy needs to be informed of his plans. He wishes he had a real desk as he sorts through Holden’s files, but he’s accustomed to his road offices. He finds Holden’s notes on Jackson Bettle, skims the information he’s already absorbed from the faxed, condensed notes: fifteen years old, attended Greenwich High School. Mother and father divorced. Two older sisters. Each family member gets a write-up. Holden sees every family member as a potential suspect; hardly surprising after Madison.  
  
There’s the school photo that Bill has already seen, a family photo he hasn’t, and some recent interviews with ex-classmates. He leafs through those too. Jackson was a quiet, reclusive child, without many friends. And then he died at fifteen, Bill thinks, unhappily. No chance of ever coming out of his shell.  
  
Bill finishes his food, gets to the dregs of his over-sweetened coffee. Without entirely intending to, he reaches for Holden’s notes on Julian Ellis. Avoids looking at the picture of Julian, instead flips to the notes on Julian’s family.  
  
He’s not sure what he’s expecting to see-- schoolgirl love heart doodles around the photograph of Harrison Ellis? A condemnatory note about Mr. Ellis’ sexual proclivities? Instead, it’s an efficient write-up of Harry Ellis’ career, and note about his lack of criminal record, his alibi for the day his son died. Could be any old mass poisoning suspect.  
  
Bill is disconcerted by the ringing phone, even though he’s expecting a call from his contact at Quantico. Maybe not quite so soon. But it’s Special Agent Martin, and he has Paul Perry’s contact information, his current address in California, all without Bill having to get up off his motel bed. Bill thanks him, again, fills the details in to Holden’s uncompleted research notes on Paul Perry. There’s a certain degree of petty triumph at official law enforcement edging out a private investigator. The FBI doesn’t sit around waiting for some _kid’s_ legwork.  
  
Bill doesn’t spend long weighing up strategy. He dials out to Paul Perry with the file on his dead kid brother cracked open on the bed.  
  
A man answers, sounding a lot older than twenty-three. “Hello?”  
  
“Special Agent Bill Tench. Am I speaking to Paul Perry?”  
  
There’s a long silence at the other end of the phone, and then, “yes,” much quieter than the first greeting.  
  
“I’ve been looking into a poisoning case in Greenwich in ‘71. We’ve established the source of an accidental contamination. We believe that your brother may have been exposed to the same toxin,” Bill says, easing off the pressure. Can’t have Paul Perry getting too nervous, disappearing or lawyering up.  
  
There’s no response.  
  
“Did your brother ever leave the house without your parents’ knowledge?” Bill questions, delicate, curious.  
  
“Yes. But, my brother didn’t die of an accidental poisoning. It was ...suicide,” the man says, halting over the word.  
  
Bill processes, too slow. “Pardon me?”  
  
“My brother committed suicide,” Paul says.  
  
“Your mother told me--”  
  
“My mother lied to you. She lied about it then, and she made me lie about it to everyone around us. We’re not in contact-- not because of this, though it certainly-- among other--” The man on the other end of the line is stumbling constantly through his explanation. It has none of the ring of deception, though. The agonizing struggle of comprehending loss.  
  
Bill gives the young man time to breathe. Suspicion instantly gives way to sympathy.  
  
Eventually, Paul starts up again: “Zach left a note. I don’t know how he poisoned himself, but he did, and so did that other kid who died--”  
  
“Jackson?” Bill asks, at once. “Jackson Bettle?”  
  
“Yeah. Jackson Bettle, that’s it. He mentioned him in the note.”  
  
“There was a suicide note?”  
  
“Yeah. Mom burned it on the stove.”  
  
“But you’d already read it,” Bill surmises.  
  
“Yeah. I found him-- he was-- he’d died overnight-- there was vomit in the bed-- I’m sorry. Hang on,” he mutters. Bill can hear shuffling at the other end. Fetching a tissue, maybe.  
  
Bill rubs his own eyes and repositions himself on the motel bed. He hears the muffled clunking and  approach. And, breath. “It’s okay,” he says, quietly. “Take your time. Anything you can tell me about this helps, Paul.”  
  
There’s hesitation on the other end of the line. “Look. I don’t remember that much. I tried to read it, and mom took it from me, and burned it. It said that he was in love with a boy, and he was sorry, and that we should pray for him. That they were going to be together somewhere, even in Hell. Obviously, the part that stuck with me was, you know-- he was really smart-- you know-- but how could you know? At that age?”  
  
Bill doesn’t have a good response to that. His mind is all twined up in the branches of that old, old apple tree. Suicide. Suicide by poisoned apple? No, the apples would have been long dead by then. “Anything else you remember? Paul?”  
  
“Mom told me that Dad would lose his job on TV if I told anyone. Dad told me-- told me to obey my parents. He quoted the bible at me.”  
  
Bill frowns at the opposite wall of his motel room. “Did you read Jackson Bettle’s name? In the note? Or had your brother already told you about him.”  
  
“No, he didn’t write Jackson’s name. I didn’t know about him. But I-- I saw that on the news,” the young man says, wetly. “But I heard about the other kid who died, and the same night. I knew that had to be the boy he was talking about, who he thought he was in love with. ...do you mind if I call you back? I’m--”

“I’ll call you,” Bill says, sensing the distress. “This _is_ the best number to reach you on, Jackson?”  
  
“Yes,” the young man says, morosely. “I’ll be at work during the day, but-- I have an answering machine.”  
  
Bill struggles to think of an appropriate way to thank this man for forthrightness. Nothing occurs. So he says what he wants to say, instead. “I’m sorry. About your brother. And your parents. And I’m sorry they put all that on you.” He’s certainly thinking of Madison and of Em when he adds, “if there’s anything about your home life you need to tell law enforcement, I will listen, Paul. I’ll help you.”  
  
“...oh. They didn’t hurt him. I’m sure they didn’t. He was the son they wanted, not me. Well, no. He was always getting into more trouble. He hated home-schooling, hated all their rules. Hated the food we ate. But that made them love him more. He got air time on Dad’s show all the time, they never wanted me on screen. Their golden boy. …I guess that ‘gold’ was cheap, surface-level electroplating. Like counterfeit jewelry. Too much contact and it disappeared in patches. ...he was my brother. I didn’t need him to be perfect. I needed him to be alive,” Paul says, and then his voice gives out. There’s ragged breathing, and then-- then the phone line disconnects.  
  
Bill thinks he should call back and make sure the kid is alright. But he’s overstepped enough into cases, hasn’t he? Instead, Bill goes to his hospitalized partner.

 

  
  
Holden is waiting there for him, just like Holden waited for him at Winnebago Mental Health Institute. Of course, there’s no heavy lock on the door of Holden’s room, and no bars on the window. All the same, it feels as if Holden Ford is being kept confined, on standby, ready to assist on a case that Bill alone can’t solve. It’s as sickening as it is convenient.  
  
Holden smiles at his arrival, but it fades. He looks better, even though Bill notices he’s still on fluids. The bright eyes aren't so bloodshot, the handsome features aren't grimaced with pain. The kid was in the middle of a meal, but he presses the tray aside to accomodate his visitor.  
  
Bill doesn’t smile back. He paces into Holden’s insurance-covered hospital room. Five or six times larger than the cells he first saw Holden in, he reassures himself.  
  
“...Bill?” Holden prompts. He seems to be growing nervous.  
  
“I spoke to Paul Perry,” Bill announces.  
  
Holden is frowning as he nudges his meal even further out of the way. “Did his mother give you his contact--”  
  
“I work for the FBI,” Bill interrupts dryly. “We can track down one kid, Holden. If you’d needed help, you should have told me. ...I called him, and he told me his younger brother committed suicide.”  
  
“Suicide?” Holden echoes, all overcome with curiousity. “Why does Paul think his brother committed suicide?”  
  
“Apparently there was a note. His mother burned the note. His parents, they covered the whole thing up. ...he was… gay,” Bill says, pausing over the word like he’s going to offend Holden. “In love with Jackson Bettle, apparently. I don’t have a fucking clue how this fits with the apple tree. It explains the Adventist hospital, though. Explains his parents freezing us out.”  
  
“It explains the timing, too,” Holden says slowly.  
  
Bill is relieved at once. He tries not to look too eager for Holden’s assistance, yet he’s expectant as he looks across at his young partner.  
  
“I told you there was some old tree forts,” Holden says pensively. “By the repaired fence.”  
  
“You said that, yeah.”  
  
“Say, they used to meet up there, when Zachariah could sneak off from his lonely, home-schooled existence. A regular rendezvous.”  
  
“...okay. They meet beside the Bourne property,” Bill agrees impatiently.  
  
Holden nods along. “This is their safety, their privacy, their mutual freedom. One day, they see four kids duck through an unfinished fence. See the kids eat the apples. And then, they hear about four kids dying. They’d know, but how could they go to the police? Zachariah was supposed to be home, and I’m sure Jackson didn’t want to admit he was with another boy. Fifteen and thirteen years old, so… they were kids. Scared kids who knew if they got pulled in by the police, they’d admit something that would ruin both their lives. They agree that they’re not going to tell anyone at all what they’d seen.”  
  
Bill weighs it up. It works, for him. “So you think suicide fits?”  
  
“Jackson got bullied a lot in school,” Holden says unhappily. “I used to get bullied a lot in school too. Always showing up in clothes that were too small, or borrowing Eileen’s t-shirts because laundry hadn’t been done. I was always the weird, poor, new kid. ...it’s rough, Bill. To know you’re different.”  
  
“Shocking that you’d empathize with voluntary consumption of poison,” Bill says under his breath.  
  
Holden’s blue eyes appear anguished beyond description, though his mouth stays a hardened white line. “They were in love. And they couldn’t be together,” he mutters. Then, he shakes his head, quickly, like he’s dispelling the clinging association. The emotion disappears. “So. They were too scared to go to the police and tell them what they saw. They just… keep what they saw to themselves. But they know that particular tree is covered in deadly poison.”  
  
“And then?” Bill prompts. “Apples are long gone by the time either of them die, Holden.”  
  
“Something happens. A stressor at school, or at home. They decide on this suicide pact. They remember the fatal poisoning; they jump that high fence like I did, or maybe sneak in through the gate, they bust the lock to wherever the pesticide was being stored--”  
  
“Garden shed, and it wasn’t even locked.”  
  
Holden is carving his blunt nails down the palm of one hand, and then the other, a curious repetitive gesture. He’s lost in thought. “And they both took their stolen poison home, I’d assume, from the time of death of both boys. Mixed it up with, I don’t know, Coca Cola? Nesquik? Maybe just water? They drank it before bed. Zachariah writes a note. Maybe Jackson didn’t want to write a suicide note and explain anything to his parents. Maybe he did, and they also covered it up, worried he’d be implicated in the earlier deaths.”  
  
“Two more kids, dead of arsenic poisoning,” Bill says, bleakly. “...I’ll have to confirm all this. Get an official interview with Paul Perry. Call in his parents. Ensure there’s no foul play.”  
  
“Of course,” Holden says slowly. He, too, grows despondent. Not finding joy in this solved case, Bill is reassured.  
  
The horrible conclusion looms between the pair for a long time. Eventually Bill clears his throat. Can’t leave someone like Holden alone, swarming with ideas of suicide. “You need to move outta that apartment, Holden. Living with a fucking drug dealer is no way to stay out of prison.”  
  
Holden smiles, but it's grim. “He doesn’t deal much.”  
  
“Too much like actual work, I’d imagine,” Bill comments snidely.  
  
“...Bill, he’s doing his PhD in mechanical engineering. He’s Em’s friend. From university,” Holden says, warming up. "That's how I got the apartment, through her."  
  
“Maybe he could mechanically engineer some kinda vacuum cleaner that cleans that fucking apartment,” Bill mutters under his breath, abashed. “..so, did Kathy head back to Wisconsin?”  
  
“She got a hotel room,” Holden says, a guilty frown on his features. “I don’t think she slept much last night. They’re probably going to release me tomorrow morning, and she wants me to come back up with her, to Wisconsin. But, you know. Quentin. And ...I want to go home to New York.”  
  
“To Em?”  
  
Now Holden becomes preoccupied with the cannula in his inner arm. He worries at a line of white surgical tape keeping the needle flatly slotted into pale skin. “She drove up, and then drove straight back to New York. I had to tell her how this happened-- that I did this to myself. So, she’s furious with me.”  
  
Bill holds down an unhelpful comment.  
  
“Em doesn’t hurt herself when things get bad. Not ever,” Holden says. He sounds hopelessly admiring. “That… spiralling thing you say I do, well, Em doesn’t do that. She barely touches drugs. She drinks, I guess. Smokes sometimes. But she’s never--” he glances at his scarred wrist, tracing a finger across a thick, petal-pink line. “Anyway, _she’s_ someone you could be proud of.”  
  
“I can’t be proud on her behalf, Holden. Em did that all by herself. I never had to help her get on the right track. ...not that I’ve done so much to get you on the right track,” Bill admits.  
  
“She’d disagree with you there. You held her father accountable, Bill, you helped her move on. You believed her. Don’t undersell yourself,” Holden says, firmly. “...we went up to see the execution. Flew up. I bought us tickets, I thought I could thank her for-- anyway,” Holden falls quiet. Then, seemingly impulsively, he speaks again: “We had sex. In Chicago. Not… not that night, we just got wasted that night. But we stayed a couple of days in Chicago.”  
  
“You had sex with ...a woman.”  
  
“I like women,” Holden says, clear and concise without actually looking at Bill.  
  
“I thought _she_ liked women.”  
  
“She does like women. I don’t know if she--” He shrugs, again. “We had sex. It doesn’t have to be an indictment of Em’s identity in entirety.”  
  
“Holden, she’s too young for you.”  
  
“I know that,” Holden says with an agitated sigh.  
  
Bill is quietly grateful Holden doesn’t bother to point out the far more significant age gap between the two of them. How old _is_ Em? Twenty-two, twenty-three, during the case in Madison a year ago, Bill recalls with no small discomfort. He doesn't like doing the arithmetic on when an abuse victim becomes an appropriate sexual partner. _Holden is the victim of abuse himself,_ his own conscience reminds him austerely. _And that didn’t stop you from--_ he redirects himself. _So, an appropriate enough age difference, especially if Holden was considering marriage, settling down--_  
  
“She initiated,” Holden says abruptly. Bill realizes he’d been quiet too long. “I hadn’t had sex with woman before. But she made a move on me, okay? I’m not a-- I don’t just try it on with anyone, I’m not the easy lay you seem to think I am--”  
  
“That’s not what I was thinking, Holden,” Bill cuts him off.  
  
“What were you thinking?”  
  
Bill taps a finger against the creased leg of his trousers. “I was wondering whether you were in love.”  
  
Holden tries to shrink into himself, but the hospital bed has him trapped, has him inescapably lit up. A spill of white that comes down from the tube lighting cold, but warms up once it rests on the young man’s cheeks. Like an interrogation room-- like a real one, not a repurposed padded cell in Winnebago Mental Health Institute. “Jesus, Bill,” Holden mutters sheepishly.  
  
Bill feels that temptation, to ease up, redirect to comfortable conversation. He doesn’t give way to it.  
  
Very, very quietly, Holden says, “not with Em.” That’s where he leaves it.  
  
And the room fills up with what Holden can’t say; what Bill can’t hear.  
  
Bill clears his throat to try to regain control of the conversation. “Why did you tell me, then? If you’re not asking for--” _My blessing?_ _Who am I to give it, anyway?_ “For approval? What do you want from me?”  
  
“I’m telling you that she and I had sex. And we’re friends. It wasn’t a cataclysm with Em. I mean, she’s really angry right now, but it’s about the arsenic, we're still friends. ...I think,” Holden says, quietly, smoothing down the front of his thin hospital gown. “She told me I was a self-absorbed asshole, and she left. I've called her, but I haven't been able to get hold of her." Holden stares forlornly at the phone beside his hospital bed. "I’m sorry, Bill. I’m really sorry. I was being selfish. I’m sorry I did this to myself. And I’m sorry about moving the rooms together and-- when we-- I shouldn’t have seduced you--”  
  
“You’re not responsible for my actions. I’m an adult. I don’t get to hold you accountable for my moral failures, as convenient, as soothing as that would be. This wasn’t some MKUltra brainwashing, Holden. You made a bad decision, I made a bad decision. Some mutual bad decisions were made. You’re better than that, and so am I.”  
  
Someone passes in the corridor, and both men fall silent. Steady, firm footsteps. Hospital staff, Bill thinks. A nurse, maybe. Bill doesn’t want to continue.  
  
Holden stares expectantly, and then eventually not expectantly. He reaches for his juice, drains the little white, ridged cup. Lips still wet, he asks, “Have you told the families? What happens now, to Bernard and Cynthia Perry?”  
  
Bill shrugs. “I’ve told you about Zachariah Perry, Holden. Nobody else. And the accidental poisonings? Well, I was waiting on the lab tests on the apples, and on the pesticide itself. ...you should tell the Harry and Jenny. Justify that hefty paycheck with your self-induced arsenic poisoning coup de grâce.”  
  
Holden’s brows knit; Bill can tell he’s offended, yet Holden this time isn’t responding with sarcasm and nastiness. He’s clipped, but direct. “Whatever you’ve got it in your head that he’s paying me, you’re wrong. I’m doing this case at my normal rate. Which is a nickel an hour above minimum wage, if you’re interested, Bill. Sure, there’s more hours involved than the civil suits I’ve been doing background on, but these are hours that I have worked _hard_. I’m not bleeding the Ellis family dry.”  
  
Bill feels protective all over again. “Maybe you shoulda negotiated better, Holden. Harry Ellis has plenty of blood in circulation. Coulda bled him half-dry. Wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world, to deprive the bastard of his next rolex upgrade.”  
  
Holden blinks, and Bill sees his lips twitch to a tiny smile. “You know what they say? About negotiating from a place of power? Well, Bill, I’ve never had any power. He could get my book pulled, if he put his mind to it. He’s _head_ _of sales_.”  
  
“Is that why you--”  
  
“No,” Holden says quickly. “But I didn’t want to start turning the screws on the guy, either. And he was-- he is a mourning parent. Even if he wears a rolex, and has a corner office, and-- and lives in fucking Greenwich.”  
  
Bill snorts without much humor.  
  
“I’m doing this because solving cases means something to me. It’s a thing I can do, that I’m good at, and it helps people. I know it’s not FBI, but it’s--” Holden folds his arms across himself. “It’s what I want to do with Holden Ford.”  
  
Bill sighs heavily. He realizes he believes Holden, which is no doubt very stupid of him. But he’ll just let himself like the kid, for a couple of minutes. A couple of warm, fuzzy minutes. “I should have said this when you first woke up, Holden, but-- I’m so glad you’re going to be okay. You are so much more to me than a correct hypothesis, Holden. You always will be.”  
  
Holden seems to almost ignore the comment. He’s looking at his vital monitor, watching his own heart rate progressing in neon green. It takes Bill a moment to realize there are tears in the young man’s eyes. When Holden speaks, it’s constricted and soft. “I… lied to you. Lied by omission, I guess. The night that I took that check from Mr. Ellis. Money was tight because-- because Jethro Daniels was coming up for parole. The legal costs got away from me. And then Bradshaw’s wrongful death lawsuit came up, and I-- I panicked, I guess.”  
  
“Jethro Daniels? The man who shot his own brother?” Bill asks, scowling. “...or do you think that’s more police conspiracy?”  
  
“There’s a reason I didn’t tell you. Yes, he shot his own brother. I’m still going to help him, however I can. He wasn’t well, Bill.”  
  
The fingernail of Bill’s pointer scores through a frown line, well-developed during his time in Greenwich. “I sure hope you’re square for the two teeth, now that you’re bankrupting yourself to pay his legal expenses, Holden.”  
  
Holden shakes his head. Now, he closes his eyes. Serenity, or a resignation. “I’ll never be square with him.”  
  
Bill sighs deeply. “Did he get paroled?”  
  
Holden shakes his head again. He speaks fast, and under his breath. “I hired a team that specializes in parole cases, and they couldn’t do a thing. Because he’s mentally ill, and black, and working class. I let them go. Replaced them with another lawyer-- not a parole lawyer, he specializes in prosecutorial misconduct, he’s got scores of people out of prison. We’re looking over Daniels’ case-- I mean, the whole department was obviously corrupt. Even if there’s no conspiracy, maybe there’s a legal angle on the harshness of his sentencing after an insanity defense.”  
  
Bill keeps his judgment unvoiced, but what Holden is talking about isn’t legality, isn’t right or wrong, isn’t Daniels’ guilt or innocence. It’s a question of how many lawyer hours it takes to unpick a conviction, how much cash can sway a judicial system.  
  
Holden eyes have cracked open; he must read into Bill’s expression, because he stops laying out strategy. “I owe him, Bill. ...like I owe you.”  
  
“Don’t say that.”  
  
“It’s true.”  
  
“Not everything that’s true needs to be explicitly stated.”  
  
“And not everything unrealistic needs to go unvoiced.” Holden closes his mouth. His lips twitch apart, and Bill finds himself watching the shape of sounds with bated breath. “...good work, Bill,” Holden eventually settles for.  
  
“Wish I could say the same to you, kid. Maybe next case, huh?”  
  
Holden is all of a sudden alert, studying Bill. “You’re… joking,” he deduces, too slow. He slumps, small and bitterly disappointment.  
  
“Yeah. Sorry. Never gonna fly out on another Holden Ford case, no matter how many filing cabinets you fill with research, how many clever faxes I get.”  
  
“Dammit,” Holden whispers. “Really?”  
  
Bill settles into a chair by the bed, nodding discontentedly. “Two nights ago, I couldn’t sleep. I was listening to the rain on the motel roof,” he says. He has his packet open, dragging out one of his last two cigarettes out. He puts the near-empty packet back in his breast pocket, crumpled inwards. “The apples were sprayed with calcium arsenate. Water soluble. Washes away with rain. And she hadn’t sprayed them the morning before you ate two of them. If it hadn’t rained, if-- well, we’ll never know. I’m glad we’ll never know.”  
  
“I’m so glad I didn’t die,” Holden mutters. “Couldn’t have done that to Em, and Kathy.”  
  
Bill has his cigarette lit. He inhales a long breath, waiting. Holden doesn’t have anyone else to add to the list, apparently, so Bill finishes for him: “And me.”  
  
“...and you,” Holden says, as if he’s willing himself to believe it. “And who would finish my book, if I died? You? I wouldn’t trust you with it. You’re too annoyingly humble.”  
  
Bill turns, blowing away the last settled smoke from his diaphragm. “Your roommate recognized me from your book,” he complains idly.  
  
“Probably the tie.”  
  
Bill picks his tie up, squinting at the polyestered pattern. “...did I wear this specific tie in Madison?”  
  
“Uh, I don’t know if you wore that specific tie. But you wore equally eye-catching ties in Madison.”  
  
“ _Eye-catching?_ ”  
  
“I think I said ...uh, ‘garish’. In my book. Sorry.”  
  
Bill’s mouth tightens right up, though he relents to a smile as he drops the magenta paisley. “Even more reason for me to not read your book.”  
  
Holden looks startled. “You’re not going to read it?”  
  
“The stuff that’s true, I remember, ‘cause I was there. The stuff that’s not true, I don’t particularly want to read. Don’t read much in the way of fiction. Especially not overblown detective stories.”  
  
“...okay,” Holden says, looking down.  
  
Bill finds himself justifying: “I don’t want to read about Creighton and Bradshaw’s crimes recreationally. I don’t want to read about Holden Ford being mistreated and mistrusted and hurt. It’s hard enough for me to live with what you went through, without a lucrative, glorifying literary refresher.”  
  
“I’ll keep my sob story to myself, then,” Holden says snippily.  
  
“If I’m gonna read something from Holden Ford, it’s gonna be interesting case files that my friend who is alive, happy, and free, is sending me to look over. To look on in a _non-collaborative_ capacity.”  
  
“To collaborate on, non-collaboratively?” Holden asks, expression brightening.  
  
“For me to look over,” Bill tells him sternly. “We’re not working together. We need to establish boundaries if this friendship is going to work.”  
  
There’s mild curiosity across the youthful features, the suggestion of a smile. “Boundaries. Okay. I think I’ve heard of those before. I could give that a try.”  
  
“Holden, I’m serious--” Bill falls quiet, at footsteps. But there’s a knock at the door.  
  
“Detective,” Holden greets, withdrawn, looking right over Bill’s shoulder.  
  
Bill stands, cigarette dangling short between his fingers, smouldering upwards. Two plain clothes police. He can see a pinch of holster beneath the woman’s thin jacket. He’s seen her before.  
  
“You must be Special Agent Tench,” greets the man that Bill doesn’t recognize. He’s wearing a plaid brown blazer, a hefty combover that in no way disguises the male pattern baldness.  
  
The other police personnel is one to whom Bill was introduced to at the Bourne property. Classically attractive in the historical sense rather than American, dark hair scraped back, an aquiline nose. He remembers showing her to the apple tree. “Hello, Special Agent Tench,” says the woman whose name he can’t remember at all. “My partner, Detective Walters. We wanted to ask Snow White here a couple of questions about the day he ended up in hospital.”  
  
“Snow White? ...I didn’t eat a poisoned apple,” Holden says coolly, though Bill knows Holden well enough to catch the repressed panic. “I told your partner that yesterday. I had samples--”  
  
“In your motel room, you said. So we called around, found the motel you were staying at. Went over to your motel, to your room. And guess what? We couldn’t find any arsenic.”  
  
“Did you have a warrant for that search?” Holden asks icily. “...sorry, I didn’t catch your name,” he adds. He’s sat up to his full height now, fingers clasped in his lap.  
  
“You can call me Detective Regini. And it’s a public safety exception, Holden,” Detective Regini says.  
  
“If there was arsenic lying around where a cleaner might stumble upon it,” Detective Walters says. He smiles in Bill’s direction, like they’re all in on this interrogation together.  “But there wasn’t any of the arsenic you claimed there was. Besides. Front desk let us right in, once we told them there was a potential stash of poison in one of his rooms. It’s his property, Holden. Not yours.”  
  
“There was no need to go through my things. I’ve cooperated with your questioning,” Holden returns sourly. He’s not looking at any of them now, not even Bill.  
  
“We’re missing details, Holden,” the woman says, stepping closer to Holden’s hospital bed. “You figured out the apple tree, right? We could do with some detective work like that down at the station, right, Will?”  
  
Bill thinks he’s being somewhat incorrectly addressed, until Detective Walters nods. ‘William’ is a very common name, but Bill doesn’t particularly care for the further association.  
  
“Maybe you could walk us through your deductive process, Holden,” Regini prompts.  
  
Bill clears his throat grumpily, extinguishing his cigarette in an ashtray. He wishes he hadn't ditched his suit jacket, his tie. “Holden Ford was falsely imprisoned in a maximum security prison from 1967 to 1977. So unless you think he got a day pass, came on down from Wisconsin to hand out toxic fucking pesticides to senile old ladies, I don’t entirely see what your angle of inquiry is. If you don’t mind me saying.” He looks up from where he’s smeared the cigarette mercilessly flat. He gives an unfriendly smile at his fellow law enforcement. “If you’re embarrassed you got shown up by some kid private eye, well, I can relate to that. Happens to me too, more than I’d care to admit.”  
  
The other William turns to him, unimpressed. “We want to know where the contamination--”  
  
“I already cleared his room out. Sealed the samples up tight, tossed ‘em in the trash. Like you said. Public safety concern,” Bill says flatly. He draws up to his full height, daring this man to call him a liar. “An accident. Sure Mr. Ford won’t be so careless again. ...what you should be worrying about is how incompetent your own department was back in ‘71, that the suicides of Zachariah Perry and Jackson Bettle slipped through as a hepatitis misdiagnosis, and an accidental poisoning.”  
  
The misdirect works. Walters and Regini are both intent upon revealed case detail.  
  
Walters begins, disbelievingly: “Suicides? But we found the arsenic spray, we found the tree it was used on--”  
  
“Ripe apples do not stay on a tree for two months,” Bill condescends, as if he hadn’t had been in this exact same room, being corrected on the exact same point, less than 24 hours ago. “And I’m sure Ms. Bourne will testify the calcium arsenate wasn’t used on anything but the apple tree. Now, I haven’t spoken to the Bettles yet, but the Perry family were well aware that Zachariah committed suicide. They covered it up out of shame, and because it would reflect poorly on their public profile, preclude them from going on TV to talk their moral superiority. A thorough investigation could have seen this case put to bed years ago.”  
  
“Do you have proof?” Walters queries.  
  
Bill nods. “...maybe we should go down to the station to discuss this. Away from the civilian who solved your case for you.” Bill motions them towards the door-- one by one, they relinquish interest in the bed-ridden young man. Bill falls into step behind. “Trust me, you don’t want to end up featured in one of his books. That’s a career-killer.”  
  
He risks one glance back-- Holden mouths ‘thank you’ as he relaxes down into the hospital bed.  
  
Bill closes the door on Holden Ford.


	6. Chapter 6

The card is blue paper. It is a little taller than an envelope, machine printed, an invitation to the launch of ‘The Death of Innocence: Catching the Madison Child Murderers from a Jail Cell’ by Holden Ford. Beneath, a date, time, and address in New York City. No advance copy of the book itself, no letter, though there’s a handwritten addendum that Bill recognizes as Holden's own meticulous handwriting: ‘You don’t have to read my sob story to come to the launch.’  
  
It’s sitting on the otherwise empty table, obvious and stark. Bill has spent the last three months trying to keep Holden Ford out of his head and his life. Now, an undeniable and yet inexplicable reminder of that man, in the dining room of his family home. Bill thinks about hiding the invitation-- but if it’s set out pointedly like this, Nancy has already read it.  
  
She must hear him by the table, because her voice floats on through: “We should go, right?”  
  
“Hm?” Bill calls back, heart already leaden.  
  
“We should go, right? To the launch,” Nancy says, rounding a doorway.  
  
“...I don't think so, no. It was an ugly case, Nancy.”  
  
“You caught the men who--”  
  
Bill steps back, glancing through the doorway for Brian. Settles down in a chair, keeping himself quiet. “Ten years too late. Creighton and Bradshaw hurt a lot of people, Nancy. A lot of children. This isn’t a triumph; it’s a tragedy.”  
  
“It's a young man getting his first book published. And he obviously wants you there, Bill,” Nancy says, gesturing to the invitation.  
  
_Enough to somehow get hold of my unlisted home address._ “You want to take Brian to New York City? He barely handles how busy the mall is, Nancy,” Bill says, voice still lowered.  
  
“My parents could watch him for the weekend.”  
  
Bill continues to frown at the intruding invitation. Nancy kisses his cheek and steps away. Bill, too, leaves the reminder of Holden Ford. A folder full of a consultation on a disturbing case in Chicago thuds down onto the desk in his office, his suit jacket and tie are hung up in his bedroom, badge and gun into the lockbox in his bedroom. Only then does he return to his wife; Nancy is leaned over the kitchen bench, wrapped up in a barely comprehensible accounting process. She doesn’t look up, so Bill steps closer and smooths the fabric around the concentrated hunch of shoulders.  
  
Guilt and apprehension have him tongue-tied. “Nothing good will come of the two of us attending that book launch, Nance,” he manages, at long last.

 

  
  
It’s on the New Jersey Turnpike that Bill realizes he’s not getting out of attending Holden Ford’s book launch. The drive has dragged-- Nancy reading a magazine and talking about the next to non-existent scenery, Bill considering turning into oncoming traffic to avoid their destination-- but it takes four hours on the road before Bill accepts the fatalistic attendance.  
  
A Boston song finishes, followed by some twinkly, trite nonsense. Bill grimaces and reaches for the tuner.  
  
“Bill! No, come on. I love this song,” Nancy reproaches, sitting up from her passenger side slump.  
  
“Good god, woman,” Bill says under his breath, though his hand drops away.  
  
“ _I know your eyes in the morning sun_ ,” Nancy sing-songs, out of time.  
  
Bill raises an eyebrow. “What are we listening-- what _is_ this?”  
  
“It’s from that film. Saturday Night Fever.”  
  
Bill sighs very heavily, reaching into his shirt pocket for a cigarette. “Riiiight,” he drawls, as he lights one. “John Travolta? And he’s in that car film you were going on about. ...should I be worried?”  
  
“I like a man with a strong jawline,” Nancy says, nudging Bill with an elbow.  
  
Bill scoffs, winds down the window to flick ash. “If you think we’re heading to New York to attend a disco, Nance...” he begins, but trails off.  
  
Nancy is laughing as she rests fingers on his neck. “He’s a baby, Bill. Come on. Just a song.”  
  
“That’s a generous term for this prattling sentimentality,” Bill says, under his breath, but he leans in to her affectionate touch.  
  
Nancy sways to the music. She doesn’t speak again until the song is, mercifully, fading out. “Must be strange for you. Company while you’re on the road,” she remarks.  
  
Bill shrugs. He takes the cigarette away from his lips, taps ash again, and then looks back towards his wife. “Not unwelcome. ...I’m a little worried I’ll get used to having company,” he adds.  
  
Nancy smiles sadly, but her eyes have caught the scenery, and the moment of compassion fades fast. “Oh. The Brooklyn Bridge,” she says, so much younger.

 

 

Their hotel (not a motel, but a _hotel,_ a change of affairs that Bill can’t quite wrap his head around) is a tall, grey structure with a deceptively luxurious foyeur, and poky rooms.  
  
“Well. We’re in a city, after all,” Nancy says as soon as the door is pushed inwards, too fast to forgive.  
  
Bill gloomily inspects the cramped interior. Even the bed is small. A doomed effort at optical illusion, to prevent lodgers ascertaining a sense of scale, and realizing they've rented out a broom closet for the night. “Should have let me book,” Bill says, setting down their bags.  
  
“The concierge would have brought those up, Bill. You didn’t need to lug them around.”  
  
“They’re overnight bags, Nance. I can carry ‘em,” Bill says, rubbing his eyes. A minibar. He could have a drink before he has to make an appearance at this fucking party. “I’m not that old and decrepit.”  
  
Nancy is unpacking a fresh shirt, unbuttoning the back of her neckline. “Can you help me with--”  
  
“Sure,” Bill says, crossing over, fiddling the white buttons free. He leans in, kisses the bare skin, more affectionate than suggestive.  
  
Nancy smiles over her shoulder, swapping out the traveled in clothing for her carefully folded alternate.  
  
“...that’s nice. Is that new?” Bill asks, closely examining the fuschia blouse that Nancy is twitching straight.  
  
She glances back. “Oh, no. I bought this for Marge’s wedding, remember? I don’t have much excuse to wear it, but, we are in New York.”  
  
“Right. ...Marge’s wedding,” Bill says distantly, eying off the very unfamiliar item of clothing.  
  
“Oh. Of course you didn’t remember, Bill. You couldn’t attend. On the road, somewhere, not that I’d recall where precisely after all this time,” Nancy says, voice tightening. “But you can see it now,” she allows.  
  
“It looks beautiful. ...you look beautiful.”  
  
She sighs, and turns around to smooth Bill’s collar. Satisfied, she dives through a cosmetics bag.  
  
Bill turns away, to go through his own bag. No outfit changes, but he finds a jacket to put over the long-sleeved polo shirt. He’d prefer a suit, but the last thing he wants is other attendees picking him out as FBI. Then, his gun and holster from the lock box. He double checks that it’s loaded, slots it inside the leather holster and begins buttoning that to his belt.  
  
“What-- what are you doing?” he hears. He glances back. Nancy’s eyes are wide, deadly still by the little motel mirror.  
  
“It’s New York, Nancy. I’m not going to walk around unarmed.”  
  
“You’re not bringing a gun to a _book launch_.”  
  
“I’m FBI. How would it look if I got mugged by some streetrat?”  
  
“Bill,” Nancy says, sternly.  
  
“It’ll be in my holster. Under my jacket. You won’t even have to look at it.”  
  
“We’re going to a bookstore,” she protests, again.  
  
“We’re walking there, aren’t we? It’s New York, Nancy. Trust me, the man who has seen the crime statistics for the city we’re currently in, to know whether protection may be necessary,” Bill says, probably too sternly.  
  
His wife says nothing as she changes her shoes, picks up a handbag, slots the invitation inside. Then, without another word, she’s passing him towards the door.

 

  
  
“Holden can be--” Bill struggles for words, and to be heard over the sidewalk traffic. He steps aside, to allow a hurried Asian lady pulling a heavy trundle cart of paper-bagged groceries. The street is cool and buffeted by light winds, and though there’s no trees in sight, an autumn leaf is spasming down the sidewalk towards them. “He’s very intelligent. Hasn’t spent a lot of time in polite company, though.”  
  
Nancy’s lips are settled to an unconvinced pout. A curl has loosened, dancing across her forehead in the rising wind. She’s only seen snippets of television-ready Holden Ford, Bill knows. “So he’s abrasive? Uncouth?” she asks, probably thinking of his time in prison.  
  
“No,” Bill says, quickly. “More like ...intense.”  
  
“You know, I’ve met people with schizophrenia, Bill.”  
  
“I don’t think it’s the schizophrenia. He’s an unusual guy,” Bill says, slowly.  
  
“You obviously like him.”  
  
“Hm?”  
  
“Well, you obviously like him. Respect him. So he can’t be all that bad.”  
  
Bill doesn’t reply to that. He glances across at a crowded subway entrance, issuing swarming bodies in the late afternoon sun. Behind it, a tree, shedding auburn. “Sure, I respect him. He’s a very perceptive investigator. He’s clever, dedicated, intuitive as seasoned law enforcement.”  
  
“You can just say you like him,” Nancy says.  
  
Bill looks ahead, instead of meeting his wife's knowing gaze. He feels a mangled mess inside. Not at all ready, and yet, here they are. “So. This is the place, huh?”  
  
Nancy removes her invitation, studies it, then the building before them: disproportionately expansive windows framed by Art Nouveau wrought iron flourishes, painted columns, a huge poster advertising the book launch. One corner has peeled loose and is fluttering desperate to follow the gusting wind. Across the opened doors gilt lettering reads ‘Wittner’s’, and despite the daylight still fading amongst the overlapping hatchwork of skyscraper shadows, the inside of the shop is brightly illuminated. There are scores of well-dressed men and women slotting their way inside.

Bill can’t see Holden.  
  
Nancy fixes the curls that have been pressed back by their walk. “Well.”  
  
“Well,” Bill echoes. Neither of them step forward.  
  
“It makes you nervous, doesn’t it? Being out of Brian’s reach,” Nancy murmurs.  
  
“Your parents will take good care of--”  
  
“I suppose you’re used to being out of reach,” Nancy says without looking his way. Now she takes off towards the amassing crowd.

 

  
  
Bill reads the room like a potential gunfight, probably due to his heightened adrenaline. Between the high rows of wooden bookshelves, in every alcove and cranny of display, are finely dressed men and women drinking champagne, all wrapped in conversations. The buzzing sounds of socialization make picking individual words all but impossible.  
  
Someone waves from the mezzanine, the directed movement catching his eye. He squints at the woman for a few seconds before he can recognize Doctor Lizbon with her coiffed hair and bright lipstick. She tugs someone over, and then Quentin grins down at him, calls something down that is, of course, illegible. Bill waves, but ducks away to his left.  
  
“See, you do know people here,” Nancy says, nudging him in the ribs.  
  
“Two people, honey. ...and Holden.”  
  
“Sorry to bother you, but do I have to… hand my invitation over to anyone?” Nancy politely asks a man in catering uniform, carrying a tray of full champagne flutes.  
  
The young man looks surprised to be addressed, or perhaps surprised to be addressed so politely. “You can hold onto that, Ma'am. Champagne?”  
  
“Oh, I…” Nancy starts, eying off the fancy glassware.  
  
“Really, you’d be helping me out. I can only keep my wrist upright for so long,” the man jokes suavely.  
  
Bill narrows his eyes a fraction as Nancy nervously selects a glass, trying not to unbalance the tray.  
  
“Bill?” comes a perplexed voice from behind. Holden looks costumed; down to casual wear, perhaps performing out what he believes a first-time-published author should look like. A flecked grey blazer with three pens tucked into the breast pocket, an open necked dark shirt with no t-shirt beneath, black slacks. His bright eyes are narrowed into the beginning of suspicion. “...I didn’t expect to see you here.” He has a champagne in hand too. Bill, immediately, disapproves.  
  
Bill wished he’d dressed more formally, now he's seen the unofficial dress code. The golfing shirt sticks out amongst all the business casual. “You invited me,” he says, folding his arms. "You look well, Holden." He hopes he doesn't need to add 'compared to the last time I saw you, in the hospital bed you put yourself in'.  
  
“Holden!” Nancy says, from behind. Her hand goes to Bill's arm.  
  
Every muscle across Bill’s back locks up rigid. He can’t even turn himself to look at his wife.  
  
Holden barely hides his shock. His lips are just wetted-- parting, closing, squeezing to what he must think is a charming smile. “Oh. You must be… Mrs. Tench?” he says, attention flicking rapidly between them. “Nancy, right?”  
  
“Nancy, that’s right. Sorry. I know your face from TV. Congratulations on your book!” Nancy says warmly. Her champagne switches to the other hand, and she’s reaching out for what Bill hopes is a handshake. It isn’t. She squeezes Holden's shoulder affectionately.  
  
Holden looks about ready to bolt for a moment. And then, he’s smiling again, though Bill can tell the geniality is being forced. “I’m just the chronicler to heroics that I witnessed from your husband, Ma’am.”  
  
“Ma’am? Oh, come on. It’s your book launch. You don’t have to call anyone ‘ma’am’.”  
  
“Nancy,” Holden tries again, quieter. His hand is shaking. Bubbles inside the champagne oscillate, zigzag, in their rush to surface. A lacy, nervous slosh. “So what brings you to New York?”  
  
Nancy pauses, now. Her smile dips. “The ...book launch?” she says, slowly.  
  
“Wait, really? You two came all the way here for my book launch?” Holden asks, rigid and unsure of himself.  
  
“Well, sure. Not every day that one of Bill’s friends gets a book published. Looks like a pretty big deal, too. What a party you’ve thrown.”  
  
Holden blinks rapidly, looking back into the crowd that's drifting in and out of the crisscross of high shelving. “I didn’t throw this party. I barely know any of these people,” he admits, deliberately conspiratorial. “...boy am I glad to have some friendly faces. I think I’ve greeted about all the highbrow Upper East Siders that I can manage.”  
  
“We’re plenty friendly. Right, Bill?”  
  
Bill nods, eyes up on the high displays of hardbacks. Maybe he could fake sudden chest pain. Then Nancy would have to accompany him to hospital, and Holden would have to stay here at his fucking book launch.  
  
“I hear nothing, whatsoever, from Bill about his work. It’s kind of exciting to be here, incognito, learning about the case that occupied Bill so much of last year,” Nancy says, into the stretching silence. “Sorry, that probably sounds insensitive--”  
  
“Not at all. It's a pleasure to meet you, Nancy. I can’t tell you how grateful I am that you supported your husband through that case, put up with the amount of time I kept him to Madison. Without his work there, there’s no telling what would have happened to Holden Ford,” Holden says, serious and yet saccharine. “...I’ve got some photos, if you're interested. The ones in the book are all a little low quality, just from the printing, but I have higher quality prints back over here. I was showing a reporter, who-- anyway, there’s a great one of Bill, when he was testifying at Creighton’s trial. If you want to see Special Agent Tench in action.”  
  
Nancy’s face lights on up like Christmas.  
  
“I need a cigarette,” Bill says, tersely. “Probably away from all the freshly printed flammables. You two have a ball, though.”  
  
“Ooh, cranky,” Nancy says, lighthearted. “He hates praise. I couldn’t even talk him up in my wedding vows, or he would have walked right on out of the church.”  
  
Holden’s expression suggests that maybe that wouldn’t have been such an unwelcome turn of events. And then he’s chuckling, and he’s linking arms with Nancy, and he’s guiding her towards the signing table.  
  
Bill turns, and Holden’s voice catches him. “Wait. Bill. Even if you don’t read it,” Holden says, sounding earnest. He has one of the books off his table, flipping to a flyleaf. He pauses, and then scrawls something Bill can’t see. Holden folds the book closed, and extends it out.  
  
Bill takes it reluctantly. “Thanks. I’ll pick it up on the way out. Or else I’ll get cigarette ash on it,” he tells Holden. He sets the thing back onto the table. This time, he makes it out the door and away from Holden Ford's fans.  
  
He’s barely managed a moment of tobacco-induced-pseudo-meditation when there’s a voice behind him. “Can I bum a cigarette? Again?” Em asks over his shoulder. She’s all dressed up, too; a grey and red chequered suit, and underneath a tight t-shirt that reads ‘Siouxsie and The Banshees’, which Bill can only assume is another one of her sound-checked bands. Compared to Em’s normal ragged attire, the outfit may as well be a satin ballgown and elbow-length gloves.  
  
Bill removes one from his packet, and hands the lighter over instead of leaning in. “There's a serious cigarette debt between us, young lady,” he says.  
  
She shrugs off the comment. Her eyes skewer him from behind the thick lenses of her glasses. “So. You showed.”  
  
“So did you.”  
  
“Holden’s my best friend. He’s launching his book. Where the fuck else would I be?” she says uncouthly, then sighs. “Now I gotta avoid Quentin Ziezel. Though, good chance he doesn't recognize me.”  
  
“You’re avoiding Quentin?”  
  
“He’s my ex’s dad,” she says directly, almost challenging him to offer an opinion on her love life. Then: "Your wife's here, huh?"  
  
It sounds like an accusation. But before Bill can decide on a response, another woman’s voice breaks his concentration.  
  
“Maddy? Maddy Creighton?”  
  
Bill turns sharply at the full name. Standing clear of the crowded doorway is a much less formally dressed, middle-aged woman. A blazer, but an over-patterned dress beneath, and blocky, practical boots instead of heels. She’s holding a closed pad, pen slotted down the spiral binding. Bill’s law enforcements instincts scream that this lady is a journalist, and therefore to be avoided at all costs. And that’s not even getting started on the name she’s calling Em by.  
  
“Can we help you?” Bill asks, aloof and unforgiving.  
  
“...oh. Special Agent Tench,” she says, giving a brief smile. She has Mediterranean features, olive skin, a shrewd gaze. He doesn't know her. But, recently, that hasn't had much correlation to the people who know him. “Sophia Harani, New York Times. I didn’t realize you would both be at the book launch.”  
  
“There’s a book launch? Oh. That explains all the displays. I only showed 'cause I heard there would be complimentary champagne,” Em says sarcastically.  
  
The woman smiles, even though there’s no friendliness in Em's joke. “You must trust him a lot, to let him tell your story.”  
  
“Holden isn’t telling my story. He’s telling his story,” Em corrects at once.  
  
“You both feature fairly heavily,” the reporter prompts.  
  
“What can I say? I make an impression wherever I go,” the young woman replies in a rude flutter of smoke.  
  
“...I’m sorry I bothered you,” the woman says, turning away.  
  
Bill doesn’t relax until he sees the dark haired woman returning to the crowd inside.  
  
“...fuck,” Em mutters, stamping the cigarette underneath a combat boot. No surrendering those, no matter the dress code. “I shouldn’t have been so rude.”  
  
“Em, telling reporters to fuck off is a morally righteous act that--” Bill starts, lightly.  
  
“She was a reviewer, and Holden needs good reviews. I was an asshole. I should go apologize.”  
  
“She’s a professional, Em. If she's a reviewer, then she's read Holden’s book. So I doubt she was expecting unadulterated sunshine from you.”  
  
Em shakes her head at the reassurance. “I’m not upset, you know,” she tells Bill. “About appearing in his book. I’m glad he’s telling this story. People should know the sort of monster that my father and Tony Bradshaw were. People should know to trust scared little girls,” she says. There’s no vocal fraying, no struggle to admit the relation to Gregory Creighton. Bill is, again, impressed by this young woman.  
  
“It’s very brave of you to--”  
  
She cuts him off: “You shouldn’t have done it, Bill. But maybe I shouldn’t have, either. He needs us to support him. I don’t want to see him end up in hospital again.”  
  
The implication settles in ugly and weighty. “...you think it’s my fault he poisoned himself?” Bill asks, growing terse.  
  
She shakes her head, but her dark expression says otherwise. “Holden did that to himself. But-- but I don’t think Holden sees relationships in any dimension but intensity of feeling. He never learned how to form healthy relationships. If he looks up to someone, he’ll take whatever proximity and intimacy he can get.”  
  
“I see,” Bill says. He’s no longer polite about it. _Holden is an intelligent, moderately rational adult,_ he thinks. He doesn’t want an argument here, not in front of so many people. Especially not in front of fucking journalists.  
  
“Do I really have to explain how much he looks up to you?” Em says quietly, pressing her glasses up her nose.  
  
“I am not proud of my choices, Em. But your situation is entirely different. Holden is a lot older than you. I shudder to think you’d hold yourself accountable, were any of Holden’s poor life choices to catch up with him.”  
  
“Thanks for the cigarette,” Em says coolly, squishing the glowing orange tip into a mounted ashtray. Bill watches her all the way inside, pulling the attention of a young man in animated conversation. When he turns towards Em, Bill recognizes Holden’s roommate. Dressed up too, in a cord suit, a knitted tie. The black man that Xander is talking to appears to recognize Em, too. Not alone to be harassed by journalists, then.

Bill’s attention turns back towards the signing table. Holden is sitting on the heavy wooden desk, thumbing through a stack of photos, pointing out details Bill can’t see from distance. Nancy is so close beside the young man, and fascinated by their conversation. It's easy to pick out her bright blouse amongst all the muted, stately tones as she almost leans on the Ford's shoulder. Someone tries to catch the debuting author's attention; he’s all smiles for a moment of greeting, but then right back to the intense discussion with Nancy. They both swap out empty champagne glasses for freshly effervescent offerings. Holden points out something in the photograph, and then Nancy is laughing, doubled over, almost spilling her drink.  
  
Bill is nervously exhaling and figuring out how to break up that budding friendship when he hears another approach across the sidewalk. Jenny Ellis is in black, understated and yet all the signs of what Bill knows to be immense wealth. The diamonds have been switched out for pearls.  
  
“Bill. Lovely to see you,” she says, with her earnest smile.  
  
“Nice to see you too, Jenny. How are you doing?”  
  
She evaluates the question to depths it was not intended to plumb. Deep brown eyes are distantly traverse the bookstore’s facade, though she seems a million miles away. Or perhaps only as far as Greenwich. “Better. Thank you, really,” she says, softly. “I was going to call, or… well. Resolution changes things. I don’t know if you know how much it changes things.”  
  
“Bill,” greets another arrival, before Bill has a chance to reply to Jenny. Harry Ellis is overdressed in his probably hideously expensive grey suit. He does not look at all pleased by Bill’s presence, even though he too is smiling. “It’s like a biblical plague, no? All these socialites posing as critics. I had no idea Holden was expecting so many guests. Maybe he’ll have to put you on the door. ...sorry to be abrupt, but Jenny, I have to grab you. Diane Clements is just about to leave, and I need to squeeze that introduction in.”  
  
“Oh. Well, don’t wander too far, Bill. I’d love to talk more,” Jenny says, smiling her pretty overbite at Bill before she follows her husband into the fray.  
  
Bill looks back inside the yellow lit interior. Holden seems to be excusing himself from Nancy, finally. Bill drops his spent cigarette, presses through the crowd and stalks Holden right towards the empty store interior. Wittner’s sells second-hand and new books, it seems, an eclectic mix of texture and tone within the hefty old shelves. He watches Holden between them, sees the young man slip inside a customer bathroom. Bill pretends to examine a particularly intricate leather spine, until he hears the door unlocking. He turns, catching Holden by the lapel as he tries to pass the alcove Bill has stepped into.  
  
“Harry Ellis. Really, Holden?” Bill asks.  
  
Holden blinks with surprised recognition, and then shoves away Bill’s hand. “I didn’t invite him. He’s-- he’s been trying to contact me. I’ve stayed away. But what am I supposed to do, now that he’s here? Kick out _head of sales_ ?” he scoffs.  
  
“And why not? The thing’s published, isn’t it? Politely show him the door and--”  
  
“It’s a manageably terrible situation,” Holden interrupts. “I’m not going to escalate. I can smile politely and pretend I hardly know him. You’re the person with the problem, Bill. ...why didn’t you RSVP?”  
  
“Didn’t say anything about RSVPing on the invite,” Bill returns unapologetically. “Or do you mean that I, specifically, should have called ahead?”  
  
“I mean, _maybe?_ In this case, yeah. Bill, we’ve spoken twice since Greenwich, and now you’re showing up at my book launch, with _your wife_ ?”  
  
“Nancy and I came to support you.”

The kid’s face is all twisted up into a smile. “Well. I’ll let Nancy know I appreciate her support,” Holden tells him sweetly.  
  
Bill draws closer. He’ll hear an arrival. “Nancy is not a moving part in your screwed up machinations, Holden Ford. If you upset her in any way, I will make your life hell.”  
  
Holden keeps right on smiling. “Threatening to send me back to prison is a little… passé by now, don’t you think?”  
  
“That’s not what I’m threatening. I’m telling you, one man to another, that you are gonna back the hell off of my wife. I’m not afraid to knock you on your ass at your own fucking book launch, boy. See how silky smooth your crowd-pleasing goes after that.”  
  
“ _Great._ Any more milestones in my life you’d like to ruin, while you’re at it? I’ll pencil my graduation into your calendar, so you can show up and berate me for something I didn’t even do,” Holden asks sarcastically.  
  
Bill rolls his eyes. “And what a milestone this is. ‘Catching the Madison Child Murderers from a Jail Cell’?” he scoffs, unable to help himself. “You must be so proud of yourself, Holden. For your singlehanded victory.”  
  
Holden winces, now. “I-- I didn’t pick that title. The marketing team insisted that--” he stops speaking, because there’s the approaching clicking of stiletto heels.  
  
“Holden? Are you-- good. Headcount is ninety-five. Time to speak. C’mon,” a woman says impatiently. Dressed like she’s working. Probably a publicist, or at least someone from Echo Publishing here to manage Holden Ford. “People are waiting,” she adds.  
  
Holden smooths his shirt front. Without so much as a backwards glance, he paces away after his handler.

 

 

Holden is already speaking by the time Bill emerges from the cluttered interior of the store. The young man is standing on a bottom step of the staircase to the mezzanine, addressing the amassed crowd with an almost ecclesiastical air. “--the first printing run should see to maybe everyone here." Polite titters. "I’ll be doing signings, so please stick around. I'll get to you all. I promise. Even if it takes another decade of my life.”  
  
Bill folds his arms. Nancy is standing by the signing desk, and she’s smiling. Another woman is close beside her, dressed so businesslike she must be from Holden’s publishing house. Nancy’s making friends already, which is no great surprise. She’s always bailing Bill out of social foibles at group events. More concerning is the proximity of Em's group of social misfits to his wife.   
  
Holden’s tone grows far more sombre as he begins to read from a handwritten paper. “I want to dedicate this book to Jessica Roe, Lucianne Rodriguez, Ellie-Anne McBride, and Missy Ruperts. Those girls would be in high school now, if the world was a just place, if the world was fair to innocence. ...more broadly, to all the children that never got to be children, and all the children who never got to be adults,” Holden says, somberly. He trails off, staring up at an ornate overhead light, and then seems to remember himself. He clears his throat, continues. “To my editor, Michael Goss. To Echo Publishing, for supporting me through this undertaking. To Wittner’s Bookstore, for hosting this event. To Doctor Katherine Lizbon, my dear friend who stared unflinchingly into the nightmare of Dodge Correctional and Winnebago, and who revealed the good in me at my lowest points. To Quentin Ziezel, whose investigative rigour saw the Madison Child Murders re-examined at all.”  
  
Bill glances around the crowd, trying to spot the Wisconsin residents amongst New Yorkers. He picks them out easily enough, sees Ziezel’s eyebrow raise. Doing his best to detect the backhand inherent in any compliment directed his way by Holden.  
  
Holden continues, voice fraying. “To Doctor Wendy Carr, who is not in attendance tonight, but whom supplied singular insight without which the case would have certainly stagnated. To…” Holden trails off, staring down at the tightly-clutched paper. “To my dear friend, Special Agent Bill Tench, who is a credit to the institution he serves, and to his family. Without Bill, I would be--” he shakes his head, swallowing heavily. “I would be in prison, or dead in the woods of northern Wisconsin. And finally, to Em. You saved me, too. You-- you know how much you mean to me. All of you mean so much to me. I’m-- I’m sorry,” Holden says softly, stepping away from the improvized lectern.  
  
The applause takes several seconds to start. The crowd lingers uncertainly, waiting to see if Holden’s speech resumes. Holden is murmuring something to a suited man, and then he hurries off towards the seclusion of the bookshop’s rear.  
  
None of the publishing company personnel, or uniformed bookshop employees, follow. More champagne is going around the room. Kathy Lizbon doesn’t move from Quentin’s side. Em seems distracted, awkwardly caught up by Xander’s gesticulating conversation. Bill is stupidly considering going after Holden himself when someone else pips him: the same journalist, scuttling off between towering shelving.  
  
Bill isn’t about to leave a vulnerable Holden Ford to be interrogated by some scumsucking journalist. He veers away from the murmuring throng. He  takes a roundabout route and treads quietly over the worn wooden floorboards. He thinks maybe they’ve stepped into a store room, or out a back door. Then, he catches murmured voices behind a tight squeeze of multi-coloured spines and antique overhead lighting. He can see the shadowy reliefs of two figures, thrown up onto the section signed as ‘International Cuisine’.  
  
“--expecting a Special Agent Tench themed panegyric,” she’s saying.  
  
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Holden asks rigidly.  
  
“A panegyric is--”  
  
“A venerating speech,” Holden says, frustration escaping into his tone. “I know. I’m asking why you think I would talk about only one man. It was my dedication. I have a lot of people to thank.”  
  
“I thought it would be almost wholly in service of Bill Tench. He’s the hero of your story, you said.”  
  
“I didn’t say that.”  
  
“You wrote it in the flyleaf of the copy you gifted him.”  
  
Holden doesn’t reply to that. Bill tenses. He’d left the book sitting right on the signing table.  
  
“When people buy a biography, Mr. Ford, it’s because they want to read the truth. Honesty has an immeasurable power. A depth. A chaos. I don’t know if your neatly wrapped up case tells the truth. I don’t want to review a lie. That would make me complicit. Do you know what the New York Times readership is, Mr. Ford?”  
  
“I don’t. But I do know you don’t normally write for the New York Times Book Review. You normally cover the crime beat,” Holden says. Bill can see from the shadow that he’s leaning forward. “People love to read a glossy crime section. Book reviews must feel something like a step down.”  
  
“I felt like my review was missing something. I felt like your book was missing something. Now I’m here, and I can detect tensions your book never talked about. A central figure, Doctor Wendy Carr, does not attend your launch. Madeline Creighton--”  
  
“By all means, call her by the name her shitty mother and monster of a father gave her. Sensitivity be damned,” Holden says coldly.  
  
“...Em. Okay. Em seems distant. Uncomfortable.”  
  
“She’s here to support me. Doesn’t mean she has to relish the reminder of what happened in Madison,” Holden retorts.  
  
“Most interestingly, Bill Tench, with whom you worked a poisoning case up in Greenwich only months ago--”  
  
Bill wonders, at once, how she knows about the case in Greenwich. _Fucking journalists. Holden, you should know better._  
  
“--seems loathe to be here. I saw him take off after you before, Holden. He looked furious. But the way you wrote about him, you made out like you were dear friends. Not even to mention _that_ dedication. So, why is he angry at you, Holden? Have you misrepresented some detail of the Madison Case? Did something go wrong in Greenwich? I spoke to the local police. Sounded like a solve to me. Your employers on that case are even here: Harry and Jenny Ellis. They seem satisfied with your standard of private investigation.”  
  
Holden doesn’t respond in turn, letting the conversation lag. “Very good, Ms. Harani. Have _you_ considered PI work?” he asks eventually, clipped.  
  
“Did Special Agent Tench have some unfavourable opinions on your book, Holden?”  
  
“He hasn’t read it,” Holden answers shortly.  
  
“People can have an opinion on a book without reading it. The New York Times Book Review exists to let overambitious, dinner party attendees to hold opinions on books without reading them.”  
  
“But the New York Times hasn’t reviewed my book, yet,” Holden says sardonically. “So how will anyone know what to think?”  
  
“...maybe I could ask his wife. That’s the lady with the curly hair, isn’t it--”  
  
Holden cuts her off, a note of panic in his tone: “I was trying to make amends, with that dedication.”  
  
“I see.”  
  
Holden continues, hushed, harried. “Bill Tench is furious with me, because I inducted him into the poisoning case out in Greenwich in an official capacity, without explaining the entire situation. ...which was, I was having an affair with my employer on that case,” Holden finishes.  
  
The reporters voice has a ravenous intensity, now. “...Mrs. Ellis?”  
  
“ _Mr._ Ellis. Harrison Ellis. Who, I’m sure you know, works for the publishing house. So there’s your story. It’s my mistake. I’d say ‘go on and ruin my life’, but well, you’ve read my book. Ruined long before you and I ever met. Death by a thousand cuts. But don’t worry, Ms. Harani, yours can be the final one. Just leave Bill, and Em, and Kathy, out of it. I’ve exposed enough of their lives without your article casting aspersions on them.”  
  
There’s silence, and then Bill sees Holden’s shadow lurch his way. He readies himself for the arrival-- Holden’s footsteps bounce on the hardwood floor-- and then Ms. Harani is moving too, shadowy arm reaching to catch his shoulder.  
  
“Mr. Ford. ... _Holden_ \--”  
  
Holden stops, turns. “You want the truth about Holden Ford?” There’s prolonged silence, muffled movement. “I spent most of a month in hospital after that,” Holden says, bitterly.  
  
Bill sees the changed posture. A shadow limb, extended out. _Must be showing off that awful scar down his inner wrist._  
  
Holden’s composure is completely gone, now. Speaks like he’s voiding ingested poison. “And it was one of the happiest months of my entire ten years I served. Because I was in a real hospital instead of a prison infirmary, even if I spent half the time cuffed to the bed. I was safe, there. But don’t let me mislead you into thinking I just wanted a break; that was a genuine suicide attempt. One of many. I wrote about them in the first draft, and the team at Echo Publishing told me it was too dark. Too confusing. Because the hero doesn’t give up. And serving time at Dodge Correctional, I gave up on being believed. I gave up on the case ever being solved. ...so I had to tone down the suicide attempts. Tone down my mental illness. And the abuse I put up with in prison? They wanted it tantalizingly implied, of course, but I could never besmirch myself with _truth_ of what I went through. They wanted their pound of flesh, a specific pound of flesh, not too grisly, not too bloodied up.”  
  
A siren passes, far away on the avenue.  
  
Holden waits out the muffled caterwauling. Bill can still hardly hear him when he resumes. “What do you want in your pound of flesh, Ms. Harani? Something a bit uglier? Some scar tissue?” Holden questions, his voice shaking.  
  
“Holden--” she tries.  
  
But the young man speaks over her: “I thought-- you know, I thought it was schizotypal thinking, that the entire world was against me. But it’s not against _me_ , it’s just against people like me. People who are mentally ill, and…”  
  
“...gay?” Ms. Harani suggests, when Holden doesn’t finish his sentence.  
  
Holden doesn’t say anything for a long time. “Please just leave my friends out of it.” Bill watches his shadow shrink, disappear. The kid has slid down against a wall.  
  
She doesn’t leave. Then, her shadow descends too. “Holden, listen to me. I didn’t come here to tear you down. I’m here because I loved your book. You are a first time author being reviewed by the New York Book Review. That is a rare privilege.”  
  
Holden scoffs, but it’s a damp, defeated sound. “You didn’t come here to write a book review. You came here to write a profile on Holden Ford.”  
  
“Yes, I did. I want to know the full story. It’s a compulsion for me. It’s why I’m so good at my job. ...I think you have the same compulsion.”  
  
“...Harry Ellis’ wife is a lovely woman. Jenny Ellis. She’s in attendance today; you should give her some warning before--”  
  
“Holden, I’m not going to out you to the New York Times’ readership.”  
  
“Oh,” Holden says distantly, and then, “thank you.”  
  
“For what it’s worth, I wish the publishing team let you tell your real story. Scars and all. It would have been a better book. If you want me to, I’ll report on your real story.”  
  
“If I _want_ you to?”  
  
“Or revise your work. Next edition, include the truths you want the world to hear, not what the sales department tells you will boost readership across your key demographics, increase circulation.”  
  
Holden laughs quietly. “Maybe change the awful goddamn title while I’m at it. ...you’re published, right?”  
  
“Twice over.”  
  
“Oh. What did you--” Holden stops dead, sighs. “I’m being reserved, acting like I didn’t research you thoroughly the moment I found out you were attending the launch. But of course I did.”  
  
“I assumed. You seem the type.”  
  
“Creepy?”  
  
“Diligent.”  
  
Another restrained chuckle from Holden. “Diligent. Sure. I liked the Middle Eastern oil drilling investigation, but I _loved_ your work on C.I.A. abuses of power. I thought that was incredibly brave, put together into an ironclad display of journalistic integrity. I was honored it was you who would be reviewing my book.”  
  
No response to the flattery, for a time. But when she does speak, it’s with palpable sympathy: “...come and sit down with me sometime this week, Holden. A one-on-one, comprehensive interview. I would be honored to tell your real story.”  
  
“I think I might take your secondary advice, and revise my own work,” Holden replies. “I don’t want to tell you to lie in your review, Ms. Harani. You can tell your readers it’s not the full story. ...maybe even give me some leverage for my more honest revisions.”  
  
That gets an amused chuckle out of the journalist. Bill sees the shadow skidding up the shelf in front of him. He presses backwards, against the storeroom door. It gives, and Bill eases his way inside, feeling remarkably childish with his shadowy skulking.  
  
“Would you apologize to Em for me? I didn’t realize the significance of her name change,” the reporter says.  
  
“I will. Thank you, Sophia.”  
  
“Good luck on your rewrite, Holden,” she says, and Bill hears her leaving, but not in his direction.  
  
“Wait. Sophia,” Holden says sharper.  
  
Bill tenses in his stooped hideout.  
  
“The Greenwich case. You know the conclusion reached was an accidental poisoning, and then a pair of suicides.”  
  
“...yes, I do.”  
  
“One of boys who commited suicide was the son of the televangelist, Pastor Bernie Perry. The notably homophobic Pastor Bernie Perry. One point two million viewers a week, according to Nielsen ratings. His son, Zachariah Perry, was gay. That’s why he killed himself.” Holden’s voice has a decisiveness to it. “Not a story I could tell, but… someone should. Someone should hold those people accountable.”  
  
Sophia says nothing to that. Her boots clunk away on the scuffed wooden floor. There’s only Holden’s shaky breathing.  
  
Bill draws in a breath. He steps out of the makeshift hiding place, and rounds the bookshelf that Holden is slumped against. Holden’s head is in his hands, but he glares up between splayed fingers.  
  
“Were you listening in on my conversation? ...fucking cops,” Holden says. A note-for-note impersonation of his roommate.  
  
“Just making sure you had it handled, Holden.”  
  
“I should get back,” Holden says, wiping his eyes on his sleeve, jaw clenched to geometric lines. He straightens up, fixes the collar of his blazer, all but ignoring Bill’s lingering presence.  
  
“Yeah, Nancy’s looking awfully lonely,” Bill says snidely, half-turned.  
  
“She’s _your_ wife, Bill. If you didn’t want her at the book launch, you shouldn’t have brought her to the book launch.”  
  
“Believe me, I didn’t get a whole lot of choice in the matter.”  
  
“You’re just a senior FBI agent. How could you have possibly thought your way out of this one? You were powerless against the sway of a single printed invite,” Holden says sarcastically.  
  
“Turns out I’m not very good at controlling the people I care about, Holden,” he says, and then immediately regrets the admission.  
  
Holden stops drying his eyes to gaze dolefully over. “...Bill,” he admonishes. A tear has run down, settled on the tip of his nose. Holden swipes the back of his hand across, childish and dejected.  
  
Bill leans against the opposite bookshelves, distancing himself from Holden. “I was listening in; I don’t know how much of what you said was actually true, but I do know you were willing to run the risk of falling on your own sword to protect me. So, thank you.”  
  
Holden is piecing himself back together, running fingers through his hair to flatten it into the usual neat shape. “You were right, too. When you said this book was a bad idea,” he says, unevenly.  
  
“I didn’t say that.”  
  
“No, you just glowered and fell ominously silent every time I mentioned my writing,” the young man says under his breath.  
  
“Well, was I wrong, to be concerned? One single reporter scrutinizing you, and you’ve already told her about the affair with Harry Ellis. It’s not going to ease up, once the fucking thing starts selling.”  
  
“If you were listening, you’d know she’s not going to report on Harry Ellis--”  
  
“I sure do hope, for your sake, that she wasn’t misleading you. It’s irrelevant. It’s one reporter, who maybe has scruples. I can tell you for free, Holden, most of ‘em aren’t gonna have second thoughts about destroying your life if it gets them a scoop. You are going to live under a microscope--”  
  
“I spent ten years in _prison_ , Bill. I can handle scrutiny.”  
  
“--and so are your friends. You must get that.”  
  
“ _Of course_ I do.”  
  
“So. You knew what it would be, Holden. Make peace with that. Take your paychecks, and--”  
  
“Oh, fuck you, Bill,” Holden growls. “This isn’t some frantic cash grab.”  
  
“No?”  
  
“ _No._ It’s about telling my story.”  
  
Bill laughs, bitter and deep. “It’s about telling a story that vaguely resembles your actual lived experiences, Holden.”  
  
“It’s about corruption in law enforcement, and about systematic repression of the mentally ill, and the horrors of the American prison system that people like _you_ put people like _me_ into _every single day_.”  
  
Bill scoffs at the accusation. “Whatever happened to wanting to be FBI? ...guess all that time with Em and Xander has got you all riled up for revolution to lawless anarchy.”  
  
“Have I offended you, Special Agent Tench?” Holden asks, an amused curl to his lips.  
  
“No. Your politics are your own. By all means, go on and try to effect radical prison reform through your airport novel.”  
  
The smile fades. “You haven’t even _read it_.”  
  
“I don’t need to read it to know how unfounded these convictions are. You are the exception to the rule, Holden. False imprisonments aren’t the epidemic you’re implying them to be. I’ve never seen another case like yours, all my years on the job.”  
  
“Or maybe you didn’t want to fuck the other men protesting their innocence, so you never got to the bottom of their cases.”  
  
Bill has to retreat several steps, ease the proximity. Or else he might punch Holden. Back towards the crowd, towards witnesses that will keep him accountable to more than his base instincts.  
  
“Thanks for coming all the way to New York,” Holden calls after him. “Or, I guess, thank Nancy, because you didn’t even fucking _want_ to come--”  
  
Bill wheels on him, finger raised. His voice is no more than a percussive rattle, like a overtightened military drum. “And I shouldn’t have come! I should have avoided the blast radius of the disaster your book launch ended up.”  
  
Holden meets him face on. “I wish you hadn’t showed up. You knew how I felt about you, Bill. You must have known. And you turn up with your fucking _wife_.”  
  
Bill’s finger retreats back into his closed fist. That lowers, to his side. Loosens. “...I--I wasn’t trying to ruin your night.”  
  
Tension dissipates from Holden, too. He gestures hopelessly towards the crowd sounds beyond. “I was telling Nancy how highly I think of you. I wasn’t trying to seduce her,” he says, sounding almost ashamed. “I promise you, I wasn’t. We were talking about _you_ the entire time. I wanted to see-- I wanted to know why you-- she seems lovely.”  
  
Bill can feel a rough, embarrassed flush creeping up his neck. “She doesn’t _seem_ lovely, she _is_ lovely,” he corrects.  
  
Holden inclines his head. Humble. Self-possessed. He seems to be waiting for Bill to leave.  
  
So Bill leaves.  
  
He walks back through the maze of high shelves, past the displays of Holden’s book, to the signing desk. He picks up the copy Holden made out to him, mainly to avoid anyone else reading the dedication. There, he can pivot, and inspect the crowd for his wife. Holden is already talking to another suit.  
  
Someone taps his shoulder. “The curly haired lady is your wife, right? She’s having coffee with Holden’s girlfriend, across the road,” Harry Ellis tells him, bordering on territorial. “...Em,” he adds, when Bill stares blankly.  
  
_Leave it. Leave it. Leave--_ “Maybe I could have a word with you first,” Bill finds himself saying.  
  
Mr. Ellis is suddenly drinking champagne faster, setting a glass on the signing table. “Concerning?”  
  
Bill scans the room for Jenny Ellis. Over by a display of the shiny-covered novels, enwrapt in the crowd; animated, probably extolling the virtues of Holden’s writing. “Some follow up on Greenwich,” Bill says vaguely.  
  
The faded blue eyes become creased with worry, and Harry leans in, voice low. “I don’t know what Holden--”  
  
Bill doesn’t let him finish. He marches away to privacy. Another set of footsteps follow. Harry Ellis is sufficiently afraid of Bill, or perhaps, Bill’s knowledge of his affair.  
  
“I told you to leave Holden Ford alone,” Bill says, as he turns.  
  
Harrison Ellis is drawn to his full height. Probably thinks he looks imposing, in his designer suit. Bill isn’t cowed in the slightest.  
  
“I tried. I did,” Harry says, and he seems to be appealing to Bill personally. “I tried to keep away from Holden,” he says, meaningfully. “I wanted to do the right thing, by him.”  
  
This, too, sounds accusatory to Bill’s guilty conscience. _Does he know? Does he suspect?_ _  
_  
Harry licks his lips before he speaks. “It’s like you’re walking through this tundra, and you’re frostbitten, you’re fading. And you see this out of control forest fire. And you think maybe, maybe, I could get close enough to warm my hands. Find some comfort. And before you know it, you’re on fire.”  
  
Bill pretends to think about the melodramatic metaphor. Then, he punches Harry Ellis in the stomach.  
  
The man drops hard, wheezing with surprise. Wasn’t even a particularly forceful hit. But Ellis isn’t a rugged individual. University educated. Never served. Probably never physically laboured a day of his life.  
  
“You can ease up on the poetry, Mr. Ellis. You can’t convince me you care about Holden. Not after the way you’ve treated him,” Bill says coolly.  
  
Harry Ellis looks up, outraged but afraid.  
  
“The kid told you about his financial hardships, and you took advantage of him. And you have the fucking nerve to show up here? At his _book launch_?” Bill asks, leaning in. “Do you like your job, Mr. Ellis? Do you like your marriage? Do you like being a free man?”  
  
Harrison Ellis doesn’t say anything at all. He’s pulled himself up, a handful of inches, braced on a bookshelf.  
  
“Because I don’t _like_ lecherous old homosexuals coercing impressionable young men into relationships,” Bill says very softly. He’s almost squatting over the downed man. “I told you, politely, to leave Holden alone. I warned you in Greenwich. Do you want me to start digging into your past, Harry? See how many other up-and-coming authors have similar stories about the head of sales at Echo Publishing?”  
  
“Holden is different--” Harry starts to protest, and then thinks the better of it. “I’m going to leave,” he mutters fast, head bowed. “I’m sorry. I’ll leave.”  
  
“Good. Take Jenny out for a night out on the town. Get her to a show. Off-Broadway, maybe. A nice dinner. She deserves it, for putting up with you,” Bill says conversationally. He helps Harry up to his feet. “Go on,” he encourages.  
  
He’s not sure if the spasming facial features are repressed fear or rage, but it doesn’t matter to Bill. Harrison Ellis straightens his expensive suit and takes off out of the labyrinth of bookshelves.  
  
Bill is perfectly upright as he returns to the party. A position drilled into him in basic, then in service, right through to use in federal law enforcement: straight spine, set shoulders, a steady voice. The right posture, and most people will do whatever you tell them to.  
  
And then there are exceptions to the rule. Like Holden Ford, mingling with attendees with a picture-perfect smile. His eyes are on Harry Ellis, weaving through the crowd towards the exit, arm-in-arm with his wife. Then, Holden looks at Bill, head cocked to one side.  
  
Bill walks straight out the door too. He waits for a break in traffic on the avenue, jogs across the two lanes. The streets haven’t quieted at all for the setting sun. Bill swerves around businessmen, and ducks inside the busy diner.

He sees Nancy’s curls peeking over a window-side booth, steels himself before he steps over.  
  
“Em. Nancy,” Bill greets, feeling the same roll of anxiety starting up. Another conversation he hasn’t been present to monitor.  
  
“Hey, Bill. You wanna join us?” Em asks, looking up from a plate of fries absolutely drenched in ketchup. She’s eating them with cutlery-- rather, with a fork. ‘Cutlery’ seems too dignified a term for the way she’s levering up her food, fist clenched around dinged up, unpolished silverware.  
  
“...I was thinking we should head off, get a real sit down dinner somewhere,” Bill says, scraping knuckles over the start of stubble on his jawline. “If that sounds alright with you, Nancy?”  
  
“Already?” Nancy asks, squinting through the emblazoned storefront window, back towards the launch.  
  
“I think some of us are heading to a bar after this. You know. Do some real celebrating,” Em says, chasing down a soggy fry with the sharp tines of her fork.  
  
Bill can’t tell if it’s an offer, or a warning. He looks at Nancy, cupping a near empty coffee between her hands.  
  
She shrugs as if tempted, but remembers herself. “That sounds fun, but I think our late night bar celebrations are behind us,” Nancy apologizes as she stands to join Bill. She rifles through her purse, sets down a five dollar note, even though Bill can’t see anything except coffee on her side of the booth.  
  
Em finishes the last mouthful of overburdened fries, drops the fork. “Okay. Probably not Bill’s scene, anyway,” she says, which sounds like a barb. She pulls her blazer jacket up from the booth seat, and shrugs it back over her shoulders without slipping inside the sleeves.  
  
Bill holds the door open for both women as they duck back onto the city street. Before he realizes the direction they’re headed, Nancy is halfway across the road, following Em’s fearless jaywalking. A yellow taxi separates Bill from the pair of women; by the time he’s picked his way across, Nancy has stepped inside the bookstore. She waves him on inside, and Bill tries not to scowl. He should have been more explicit about having already said his farewells to Holden.  
  
By the time he’s caught up, Nancy is already in conversation. Holden has stopped in the middle of his signing to lean over towards her.  
  
“If the two of you are ever in Virginia, you should come over for dinner,” Nancy is saying, letting go of a hug. “...where are you living? Not New York, of course.”  
  
“I...live here,” Holden says, distracted. A fountain pen swings pendulous between nervously twitching fingers. “I do,” he defends, at Nancy’s disbelieving chuckle. “I was born in Brooklyn.”  
  
Nancy raises her palms. “Well. If you’re ever down in our direction, Holden...”  
  
Holden has noticed Bill, even if he is entirely avoiding looking up at him. “I’d love that,” he says to Nancy, expression marshalled to greasy pleasantness. “It was a pleasure to meet you, Nancy.” And then he’s going back to the queue of fans, purchased copies extended needily.  
  
Nancy tugs the gifted book out of Bill’s hands and into her purse. The action seems covetous.

 

  
  
“I see what you mean. About the case not being a triumph,” Nancy says. There’s no clarity of her enunciation. Dinner was pasta, and a split bottle of an earthy Italian red that had more of an effect on Nancy. “It’s all so awful.”  
  
“I don’t want to put this on you. This-- _I_ chose my job,” Bill says. “You don’t have to shoulder any of this.”

“I chose you.”  
  
“You didn’t choose dead children and broken-up lives, Nancy. You couldn’t have expected me to end up embroiled in anything like the Madison case.”  
  
“Do you want to give it up?” Nancy asks, serious despite the intoxication. “Could you?”  
  
Bill gestures for the check. No dessert needed. He’ll get his wife to their tiny hotel room and into their tiny shared bed. “I don’t know.”  
  
“You wouldn’t get to be the hero any more,” Nancy says, eyes closed.  
  
Bill’s expression sours as he watches the waitress depart with his card, sashaying through the irregular obstacle course of occupied tables.  
  
“And those kids needed a hero,” Nancy follows up, and Bill realizes it wasn’t an insult at all.

 

 

Nancy barely gets herself out of the pink blouse before she’s in bed. She was half-asleep in the taxi, perhaps three-quarters by the time they were in the elevator up. She drank little more than a mouthful of the water Bill tried to ply her with, clumsily wiped her face with a face cloth at the same time she was brushing her teeth. Like an exaggerated ‘rub your stomach, pat your head’ sobriety test, and Nancy definitely failed. She smiled back at him in the mirror through foamed toothpaste. _Half a bottle of wine, Nance? ...we’re certainly not as young as we used to be._  
  
Except that Bill’s habits on the road have left him perfectly capable of handling his liquor.  
  
So he sits awake, watching his drunken, slumbering wife in the orange-toned glow from the bedside lamp on his side. It’s curiosity, maybe concern, that has him going into her purse. He takes out the hardback Holden insisted on giving him, cracks open the fresh splay of pages. Written in the flyleaf, 'For Bill Tench. The hero of the story.' Bill feels himself flushing, tender embarrassment rather than anger. He skips the dedications, straight for chapter 1. Then, he reads.  
  
_‘Detective Quentin Ziezel and Special Agent Bill Tench did not look like men who could be expected to solve a convoluted cold case. Quentin Ziezel could have passed for a greengrocer, other than his thick shoulder holster and handgun stowed within. Bill Tench, a midwestern church-goer, right down to the garish, floral blue tie. I had been sleepless with anticipation of renewed FBI involvement in my case; the amused disdain conveyed by this imposing arrival left me irate and defeated. Bill Tench offered me a cigarette, in what I presumed to be a second-rate attempt at friendly interrogative strategy. I’m a non-smoker, which I informed him-- after I’d accepted the cigarette.  
  
I had no idea that I was in the presence of two of the most resourceful, dedicated, and intelligent law enforcement personnel in the country. I certainly had no idea how much I would come to owe them over the ensuing months.  
  
My name is Holden Ford, and for a decade of my life I was the convicted Madison Child Murderer.  
  
I was born in Brooklyn, 1948 to Eileen Ford, the same woman who would one day report to the police of Madison PD that I was a child murderer. She gave me her surname, and my father’s went into the ground with him, two months before I was born. My mother and father met at a religious support group for sufferers of, among other mental illnesses, schizophrenia. My father was twenty-six, unemployed despite his degree in physics from MIT. During World War Two, my father worked on radar technology, and continued to work at university laboratories after the war was over. At some point, mental illness debilitated him beyond societal functionality. It was at this lowest of points that he met my mother: two years his junior, recently de-institutionalized, a accounting major drop-out. The two moved in together only weeks later. After two months of cohabitation, I was conceived.  
  
Sometimes I would entertain the notion that my father’s scientific mind availed to him the genetic risks of producing a child with another paranoid schizophrenic. That it was guilt that drove him off the side of the George Washington Bridge. I prefered that interpretation than my mother’s: that Emmanuel McClure wasn’t interested in raising his bastard child.’_  
  
He can read no further. Bill closes Holden Ford’s book and sets it on his bedside table. His wife breathes brassily beside him, filling the tight hotel room with rasping humanity. An all-consuming guilt is washing over him; he finds himself equally unable to sit still, or formulate action to repair his wrongdoing. After several minutes of mounting misery, Bill slides off the bed and back into his shoes.  
  
He knows Holden’s number by heart. Sitting in a wooden hotel phone booth, he dials out, sliding the privacy door closed.  
  
The phone rings twice, and then someone picks up. There’s a distant babble of voices, and frantic punk music floating through the open connection. Breathing, but no greeting.  
  
“Hello?” Bill tries.  
  
“Hello,” comes a flat male voice. Not Holden. His roommate, Bill is pretty sure.  
  
Bill clears his throat. “It’s Bill. ...Tench.”  
  
“Oh. Bill,” Xander says in recognition, tone lightening up at once. “Xander here. Sorry. We don’t get too many calls late.”  
  
_Or you’re stoned to the point of paranoia._ “I was hoping to speak to Holden,” Bill follows up.  
  
“Oh-- hang on, Bill-- _Holden,_ ” Xander calls, away from the handset.  
  
Bill hears a muffled conversations ( _“You’re going to want to take this”_ , he thinks he hears over the crashing drumbeat), and then the line jostles with movement.  
  
“How can I help you?” Holden asks, slate blank. He doesn’t sound drunk, but Holden is still a grade-a bullshitter. Faked sobriety is perfectly plausible.  
  
Bill knocks his knuckles repetitively against the phone cord. The word ‘sorry’ dies silent on his tongue. “I started the book,” he says, instead.  
  
“Oh. Were you in an airport?” Holden asks coldly. Now, Bill can now hear the slip-and-slide of the celebratory drinks.  
  
“I’m calling to apologize. ...do you want to do the same?”  
  
The young man remains confrontational. “What do you want me to apologize for?”  
  
“Are you serious?”  
  
There’s a clattering of movement. A long pause. “...I’m sorry I implied your investigative scope is limited to people you want to fuck,” he says, hushed.  
  
“Can you not--” Bill starts, grimacing. “You can just say ‘sorry’. And mind your language.”  
  
“Sorry.”  
  
“Apology accepted.”  
  
“Are you really reading my book?” Holden asks.  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“Well, don’t. Not that book. I’ll send you a revised copy. I wanna do some rewrites,” Holden says, an unusually informal contraction from the young man. Alcohol, Bill supposes.  
  
Bill glares again at the ‘no smoking’ sign imposing down upon him. He wants something warm between his lips. “Holden, I’m sorry I told you to lie in your biography. If you write the truth about the Creighton interrogation, I’ll deal with the professional consequences.”  
  
“Of course I’m not going to screw up your career,” Holden almost laughs. “Bill. Come on. That’s the best part of the book.”  
  
“Your insecurities seem to have you believing you couldn’t possibly be the hero of your own book. But-- but that doesn’t mean you have to romanticize my part in it. Some stories don’t have heroes.”  
  
Holden does really laugh this time. “It builds me up more than you. Makes it seem like I was your active partner, if only for a few hours. Like I was-- like I was FBI,” he says, stumbling over each word now. “I want to keep that the way it is. If you don’t mind.”  
  
“It’s your book, Holden. ...I gotta go up, check on Nancy. We shared a bottle of wine, plus the free champagne she drank, well, she was out like a light. Should make sure there’s water by the bed. ...go back to your friends, Holden.”  
  
“If I’m in Virginia, can I really come over to dinner?” Holden asks, seriously.  
  
“So you can, what, flirt with my wife?”  
  
“I won’t flirt with Nancy. I won’t flirt with either of you. Or both of you. ...unless you are both interested in being flirted with, then I could--”  
  
“ _Jesus,_ kid,” Bill hisses him silent, as if there’s some unseen, judgmental audience. “No,” he follows up, quickly. “We’re not some New York City rock’n’roll-ing, free-loving, party animals. We are adults. Just come to dinner. Be normal. Be an adult too.”  
  
“Okay,” Holden says, seriously. “I’ll be normal.”  
  
“Then, sure, come to dinner,” Bill says, relaxing back against the time-smoothed grain behind him. The first deep breaths he’s drawn in New York. “Goodnight, Holden. Enjoy yourself, but don’t be irresponsible.”  
  
“Okay,” Holden agrees. "...Bill, there's this case. I didn't know what sort of terms we were on, so I didn't send it your way, but I--"  
  
Bill talks over him. “And congratulations, you know? On the book. I mean it. Stew on your unsolved cases in the morning, Holden. Now, you should be happy. You should be proud of yourself."  
  
“Goodnight, Bill,” Holden says softly, and Bill can hear the kid’s smile. So soft, and so close. And then the line clicks, and Bill is in the dim hotel lobby without Holden.


End file.
